La enigmática tortuga Kallokibotion en las VII Jornadas de Salas de Los Infantes

Kallokibotion es una tortuga primitiva europea, definida hace casi un siglo pero, hasta ahora, mal conocida debido a la mala preservación del material clásico, y a la ausencia de nuevos ejemplares hasta ahora disponibles en la literatura. En las VII Jornadas de Salas de Los Infantes se han presentado varios nuevos ejemplares, muy bien preservados, que permiten tener una nueva visión sobre esta relevante tortuga.

El resumen de esta comunicación es el siguiente:

The information on the European continental turtle faunas of the Upper Cretaceous is relatively good. Two main groups of freshwater turtles are identified in both Western Europe and Central-Eastern Europe: Dortokidae (stem Pleurodira) and Bothremydidae (Podocnemidoidea, Pleurodira) The so far known fauna of terrestrial turtles in the uppermost Cretaceous of both regions of the European archipelago is composed of different taxa: Solemydidae in Western Europe and the enigmatic Kallokibotion in the other part of the archipelago, identified in the Haţeg Basin (Transylvania, Romania). Nopcsa (1923a, 1923b) defined Kallokibotion from several specimens. Gaffney and Meylan (1992) reviewed the classic specimens, performing a new study of this taxon. However, they indicated that the relatively poor preservation and the scarce availability of characters in the known remains restricted their ability to determine the osteology of Kallokibotion. Very scarce material of this taxon has subsequently being presented, and has been hardly analyzed in depth.

Abundant and well-preserved new material attributable to Kallokibotion, from several locations of the Haţeg Basin, is presented here. Its study, and the detailed comparison with both the classic material of this taxon and with other stem testudines, allow us describing many hitherto unknown characters for Kallokibotion, providing a better anatomical characterization for this primitive turtle. These characters correspond to both cranial and postcranial elements. Some previous hypotheses about the anatomy of this taxon are confirmed, but others are refuted. The new information is incorporated in several phylogenetic analyses. Thus, new information about its phylogenetic position, now under discussion, is also provided.

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Más información:

• Referencia: Pérez-García, A., Codrea, V.A. 2016. The European Upper Cretaceous primitive turtle Kallokibotion: new information provided by the study of new well-preserved remains. In: Torcida Fernández-Baldor, F., Canudo, J.I., Huerta, P., Pereda, X. (eds.) Abstracts book of the VII International Symposium about Dinosaurs Palaeontology and their Environment, 117.