Megalochelys
Appearance
Megalochelys Temporal range: Miocene-Pleistocene
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M. atlas skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Testudines |
Suborder: | Cryptodira |
Superfamily: | Testudinoidea |
Family: | Testudinidae |
Genus: | †Megalochelys Falconer & Cautley, 1837[1] |
Synonyms | |
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Megalochelys is an extinct genus of cryptodiran turtle which lived from the Miocene to Pleistocene, across Asia and possibly East Europe.
This fossil genus is the original and valid name for what has often been called Colossochelys. It contains three named species with several unnamed taxa.
- Megalochelys atlas Falconer and Cautley, 1844[2]
- Megalochelys cautleyi Lydekker, 1889[3]
- Megalochelys sondaari Rhodin et al., 2015 [4]
References
- ^ Falconer, H. and Cautley, P.T. 1837. On additional fossil species of the order Quadrumana from the Siwalik Hills. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 6:354–360.
- ^ a b Falconer, H. and Cautley, P.T. 1844. Communication on the Colossochelys atlas, a fossil tortoise of enormous size from the Tertiary strata of the Siwalk Hills in the north of India. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1844(12):54–84.
- ^ Lydekker, R. 1889. Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia and Amphibia in the British Museum. Part III. Chelonia. London: British Museum of Natural History, 239 pp.
- ^ Anders G.J. Rhodin; Scott Thomson; Georgios L. Georgalis; Hans-Volker Karl; Igor G. Danilov; Akio Takahashi; Marcelo S. de la Fuente; Jason R. Bourque; Massimo Delfino; Roger Bour; John B. Iverson; H. Bradley Shaffer; Peter Paul van Dijk (2015). "Turtles and Tortoises of the World During the Rise and Global Spread of Humanity: First Checklist and Review of Extinct Pleistocene and Holocene Chelonians". Chelonian Research Monographs. 5 (8): 000e.1–66. doi:10.3854/crm.5.000e.fossil.checklist.v1.2015.