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Galianemys whiteiFossil, Fossil Pleurodire
Dr. Gene Gaffney - American Museum of Natural History
Galianemys whitei
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skull
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American Museum of Natural History (AMNH 29987) - holotype

Image processing: Dr. Jessie Maisano
Image processing: Dr. Amy Balanoff
Publication Date: 23 Oct 2002

ITIS TNS Google MSN

From Gaffney et al. (2002)

The Cenomanian redbeds of southern Morocco have yielded skulls of a new genus and two new species of side-necked turtles, Galianemys whitei and Galianemys emringeri. The genus is based on a series of nine well-preserved skulls and three partial skulls. Galianemys is a pelomedusoid pleurodire belonging to the family Bothremydidae Baur, 1891, because it has: (1) precolumellar fossa absent, (2) foramen stapedio-temporale facing anteriorly, (3) eustachian tube separated from stapes by bone, and (4) exoccipital-quadrate contact. Within the Bothremydidae Galianemys is best resolved as the sister group to Cearachelys because both have the jugal retracted from the orbital margin and a small, slitlike fenestra postotica. Galianemys emringeri has a deep fossa pterygoidei, ventrally exposed prootic, foramen nervi facialis and foramen nervi vidiani, a thicker labial ridge, and the jugal not exposed on the triturating surface, while Galianemys whitei has a shallow fossa pterygoidei, covered prootic and foramen nervi facialis and vidiani, a thinner labial ridge, and a jugal exposed on the triturating surface.

skull

copyright @ American Museum of Natural History 2002

About the Species

This specimen, the holotype, is a pleurodire from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of Morroco. It was made available to The University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray CT Facility for scanning by Dr. Gene Gaffney of the American Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with Dr. Timothy Rowe of The University of Texas at Austin. Funding for scanning was provided by a National Science Foundation Digital Libraries Initiative grant to Dr. Rowe.

About this Specimen

This specimen was scanned by Matthew Colbert and Rich Ketcham on 1 November 2000 along the coronal exis for a total of 480 slices. Each slice is 0.1153 mm thick with an interslice spacing of 0.1153 mm, and field of reconstruction of 50 mm.

About the
Scan
Literature

Gaffney, E.S., H. Tong, and P.A. Meylan. 2002. Galianemys, a New Side-Necked Turtle (Pelomedusoides: Bothremydidae) from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco. American Museum Novitates 3379:1-20.

Gaffney, E. S. 1990. Comparative osteology of the Triassic turtle Proganochelys. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 194:1-263.

Gaffney, E. S. 1979. Comparative cranial morphology of recent and fossil turtles. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 164:65-376.

Gaffney, E. S. 1972. An illustrated glossary of turtle skull nomenclature. American Museum Novitates 2486:1-33.

Lapparent de Broin, F. de, and C. Werner. 1998. New late Cretaceous turtles from the western desert, Egypt. Annales de Paleontologie 84(2):131-214.

Meylan, P. A. 1996. Skeletal morphology and relationships of the early cretaceous side-necked turtle, Araripemys barretoi (Testudines: Pelomedusoides: Araripemydidae), from the Santana Formation of Brazil. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16:20-33.

Tong, T., and E. Buffetaut. 1996. A new genus and species of pleurodiran turtle from the Cretaceous of southern Morocco. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 199:133-150.

Tong, H., E. S. Gaffney, and E. Buffetaut. 1998. Foxemys, a new sidenecked turtle (Bothremydidae: Pelomedusoides) from the late Cretaceous of France. American Museum Novitates 3251:1-19.

Links

Gene Gaffney's Phylogeny of Turtles (AMNH) (requires Flash plug-in)

Literature
& Links

Photograph of Galianemys whitei, holotype, AMNH 29987.

Additional
Imagery

To cite this page: Dr. Gene Gaffney, 2002, "Galianemys whitei" (On-line), Digital Morphology. Accessed March 28, 2024 at http://digimorph.org/specimens/Galianemys_whitei/.

©2002-20019 - UTCT/DigiMorph Funding by NSF
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