Diversidad de tortugas pleurodiras de Lo Hueco en el XVI Annual Meeting de la EAVP

Siguiendo con la recopilación de trabajos tortuguiles presentados por el Grupo de Biología Evolutiva de la UNED en el XVI encuentro anual de la EAVP, hoy toca el turno de aquel correspondiente al registro de Bothremydidae de Lo Hueco (Cuenca).

El resumen es el siguiente:

Bothremydidae is the best represented group of turtles in the coastal and freshwater Upper Cretaceous sites of southwestern Europe. Several members of Bothremydini have been identified in the Campanian-Maastrichtian record of this area. Rosasia soutoi is only known in the Portuguese record. Several taxa so far restricted to the French record were described: Polysternon provinciale, Elochelys perfecta and Foxemys mechinorum. Polysternon atlanticum was defined in the Spanish upper Campanian site of Laño (Burgos), being unknown outside of this locality. The only species recognized in more than one country is Iberoccitanemys convenarum. It was defined by a shell from the upper Maastrichtian of Haute-Garonne (France), having been subsequently recognized in Central Spain by several well-preserved complete and partial shells from the upper Campanian-lower Maastrichtian site of Lo Hueco (Cuenca), and by isolated remains from the upper Campanian site of Armuña (Segovia).
Besides the fossils attributed to Iberoccitanemys convenarum, a plastron of a second bothremydid was found in Lo Hueco, this site being the only one in Europe where the synchronous and sympatric coexistence of two bothremydids is currently recognized. However, the limited information so far available only allowed its preliminary identification as an indeterminate member of Foxemydina.
Several unpublished remains from Lo Hueco, attributable to that second form, are presented here. This study allows its accurate systematic attribution, being recognized as Foxemys mechinorum, and, therefore, expanding both the knowledge about the diversity of Bothremydidae in the Spanish record and the paleobiogeographical distribution of this taxon so far exclusively recognized in France.