Adocus

Adocus
Shell of Adocus punctatus, USA, New Jersey, Cretaceous period, at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Subphylum:	Vertebrata
Superclass:	Tetrapoda
Class:	Sauropsida
Subclass:	Anapsida
Order:	Testudines
Suborder:	Cryptodira
Superfamily:	Trionychia
Family:	Adocidae
Genus:	Adocus Cope 1868

Adocus is an extinct genus of aquatic turtles belonging to the family Adocidae. Adocus was once onsidered a genus belonging to the family Dermatemyidae, but nowadays it is assigned by most authors to the family Adocidae.

Skull and shell of Glyptops ornatus, and shell of Adocus punctatus

Description

Species of the genus Adocus had flattened and smoothly contoured shells with horny sculptured plates. The shells could reach a length of about 80 cm. These large freshwater turtles had a omnivore diet. They lived from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Paleocene in North America, but in Asia the were present also in the Eocene.

Distribution

These turtles have been found in Cretaceous to Paleogene of United States and in Cretaceous of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, United States and Uzbekistan.

Species

• Adocus agilis
• Adocus aksary
• Adocus bossi
• Adocus bostobensis
• Adocus dzhurtasensis
• Adocus firmus
• Adocus foveatus
• Adocus hesperius
• Adocus kirtlandius
• Adocus kizylkumensis
• Adocus lineolatus
• Adocus onerosus
• Adocus orientalis
• Adocus pravus
• Adocus punctatus (synonyms: A. beatus, A. lacer)
• Adocus syntheticus

References

• The Paleobiology Database
• Paleocene Mammals
• Recently Collected Specimen of Adocus
• E.V. Syromyatnikova and I.G. Danilov NEW MATERIAL AND A REVISION OF TURTLES OF THE GENUS ADOCUS (ADOCIDAE) FROM THE LATE CRETACEOUS OF MIDDLE ASIA AND KAZAKHSTAN
• Yale Digital Content