Durante las IX Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontologia de Dinosaurios y su Entorno, celebradas en Salas de los Infantes, se presentó la reconstrucción neuroanatómica tridimensional a partir del único ejemplar conocido de la tortuga del Maastrichtiense egipcio Zolhafah bella (Pleurodira, Bothremydidae). Este trabajo se realizó a partir del escaneo del cráneo mediante el CT scan del Museum für Naturkunde de Berlín, donde está depositado el fósil. En la comunicación, además del análisis de la neuroanatomía de esta tortuga, las estructuras craneales internas se compararon con las de otros botremídidos, de los cuales se ha realizado este tipo de estudios. El resumen de esta presentación se expone a continuación:
Zolhafah bella is a bothremydid turtle from the Maastrichtian Ammonite Hills (Dakla Formation) of Egypt. It is exclusively known by its holotype, corresponding to a nearly complete skull described by Lapparent de Broin and Werner (1998). Although it is attributed to the clade Bothremydini, its precise phylogenetic position is currently under debate. Thus, it has been interpreted as both a basal member of the clade Bothremydina (Gaffney et al., 2006), and a taxon occupying a basal position within Bothremydini (Martín-Jiménez and Pérez-García, 2021). A more precise anatomical analysis of the skull of this species will allow to improve our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships between the representatives of this clade. To carry out the detailed analysis of the holotype of Zolhafah bella, a CT scanning has been realized. The images obtained have been processed through specific three-dimensional segmentation software to reconstruct both the bony elements of the skull and the neuroanatomical structures (i.e., the cranial, nasal, and labyrinthic cavities, and the carotid and nervous canals). As a result, the first three-dimensional reconstruction of the neuroanatomical structures of Zolhafah bella is presented here, being one of the few available for Bothremydidae. The comparison with the neuroanatomy of other bothremydid taxa for which their complete or partial reconstruction had been performed, including most lineages of this clade (i.e., Cearachelyini, Bothremydini, and Taphrosphyini), is also accomplished here. The new information provided here for the bothremydid Zolhafah bella allows to improve the comparative neuroanatomy framework for this diverse clade, allowing to recognize synapomorphies for this group.
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