A neglected lineage of North American turtles fills a major gap in the fossil record

53 2 March 241 248 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2009.00929.x

JOYCE, W. G., LYSON, T. R. 2010. A neglected lineage of North American turtles fills a major gap in the fossil record. Palaeontology, 53, 2, 241–248.

Walter G. Joyce and Tyler R. Lyson The fossil record of the two primary subclades of softshell turtles (Trionychidae) is exceedingly asymmetric, as a result of a ghost range of total clade Cyclanorbinae that is estimated at 80 Ma. Herein, we present the first phylogenetic analysis of Trionychidae that includes a representative of the poorly studied taxon Plastomenidae, which is known from the Campanian to Eocene of North America. The analysis reveals that plastomenids are stem cyclanorbines, thus significantly reducing the apparent ghost range of total group Cyclanorbinae to approximately 30 Ma. Plastomenids are either an early branching clade of stem Cyclanorbinae, or they represent a paraphyletic grade that gave rise to modern cyclanorbines. Although abundant, the fossil record is still too poorly understood to distinguish between these two primary hypotheses. The previously persistent extremely long ghost range of total clade Cyclanorbinae appears to have been the result of a research bias.
  • ARCHIBALD, J. D. 1993. The importance of phylogenetic analysis for the assessment of species turnover: a case history of Paleocene mammals in North America. Paleobiology, 19, 1–27.
  • BENTON, M. J. and STORRS, G. W. 1996. Testing the quality of the fossil record: paleontological knowledge is improving. Geology, 22, 111–114.
  • BRINKMAN, D. B. 2005. 11 Turtles: diversity, paleoecology, and distribution. 202–220. In CURRIE, P. J. and KOPPELHUS, E. B. (eds). Dinosaur Provincial Park. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 648 pp.
  • CHKHIKVADZE, V. M. 1970. The earliest Cainozoic tortoises of the USSR. Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, 60, 749–752. [In Russian].
  • COPE, E. D. 1871. Descriptions of some new vertebrata from the Bridger Group of the Eocene. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 12, 460–465.
  • COPE, E. D. 1884. The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West. 1–1009. In Report of the United States Geological Survey of the West, Volume 3 . United States Geological Survey of the West, Washington DC.
  • DANILOV, I. G. 2005. Die fossilen Schildkröten Europas. 229–441. In FRITZ, U. (ed.). Handbuch der Reptilien und Amphibien Europas, Band 3/IIIB: Schildkröten (Testudines) II. Aula, Wiebelsheim, 448 pp.
  • DANILOV, I. G. and PARHAM, J. F. 2006. A redescription of ‘Plesiochelys’ tatsuensis, a turtle from the Late Jurassic of China, and its bearing on the antiquity of the crown clade Cryptodira. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 26, 573–580.
  • DANILOV, I. G. and PARHAM, J. F. 2008. A reassessment of some poorly known turtles from the Middle Jurassic of China with comments on the antiquity of extant turtles. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 28, 306–318.
  • ENGSTROM, T. N., SHAFFER, H. B. and MCCORD, W. P. 2004. Multiple data sets, high homoplasy, and the phylogeny of softshell turtles (Testudines: Trionychidae). Systematic Biology, 53, 693–710.
  • ERNST, C. H. and BARBOUR, R. W. 1989. Turtles of the world. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 313 pp.
  • FELSENSTEIN, J. 1985. Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap. Evolution, 39, 783–791.
  • 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. and BARTHOLOMAI, A. 1979. Fossil trionychids of Australia. Journal of Paleontology, 53, 1354–1360.
  • GARDNER, J. D., RUSSELL, A. P. and BRINKMAN, D. B. 1995. Systematics and taxonomy of soft-shelled turtles (Family Trionychidae) from the Judith River Group (mid-Campanian) of North America. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 32, 631–643.
  • HAY, O. P. 1908. The fossil turtles of North America. Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication, 75, 1–568.
  • HILLIS, D. M. and BULL, J. J. 1993. An empirical test of bootstrapping as a method for assessing confidence in phylogenetic analysis. Systematic Biology, 42, 182–192.
  • HIRAYAMA, R., BRINKMAN, D. B. and DANILOV, I. G. 2000. Distribution and biogeography of non-marine Cretaceous turtles. Russian Journal of Herpetology, 7, 181–198.
  • HOLROYD, P. A. and HUTCHISON, J. H. 2002. Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: evidence from the turtle component. Geological Society of America Special Papers, 361, 177–190.
  • HUMMEL, K. 1929. Die fossilen Weichschildkröten (Trionychia). Geologische und Palaeontologische Abhandlungen, 16, 359–487.
  • HUMMEL, K. 1932. Trionychia fossilia. In QUENSTEDTI, W. (ed.). Fossilium Catalogus, Animalia, Pars 52. Fisher Verlag, Berlin, 106 pp.
  • JOYCE, W. G., PARHAM, J. F. and GAUTHIER, J. A. 2004. Developing a protocol for the conversion of rank-based taxon names to phylogenetically defined clade names, as exemplified by turtles. Journal of Paleontology, 78, 989–1013.
  • KORDIKOVA, E. G. 1994. Review of fossil trionychid localities in the Soviet Union. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, 173, 341–358.
  • KRENZ, J. G., NAYLOR, G. J. P., SHAFFER, H. B. and JANZEN, F. J. 2005. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution of turtles. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 37, 178–191.
  • LAPPARENT de BROIN, F. DE 2000. African chelonians from the Jurassic to the Present. A preliminary catalog of the African fossil chelonians. Palaeontologica Africana, 36, 43–82.
  • LAPPARENT de BROIN, F. D. E. 2001. The European turtle fauna from the Triassic to the Present. Dumerilia, 4, 155–217.
  • LYDEKKER, R. 1889. Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia and Amphibia in the British Museum, Part 3, Chelonia. Longmans, London, 239 pp.
  • LYSON, T. R. and JOYCE, W. G. in press. A new baenid turtle from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota and a preliminary taxonomic review of Cretaceous Baenidae. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
  • MEYLAN, P. A. 1987. The phylogenetic relationships of soft-shelled turtles (Family Trionychidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 186, 1–101.
  • MEYLAN, P. A. 1990. Fossil soft-shelled turtles (Family Trionychidae) of the Lake turkana Basin, Africa. Copeia, 1990, 508–528.
  • MŁYNARSKI, M. 1976. Testudines. In KUHN, O. (ed.). Handbuch der Paloherpetologie, Volume 7 . Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart, 130 pp.
  • NEAR, T. J., MEYLAN, P. A. and SHAFFER, H. B. 2005. Assessing concordance of fossil calibration points in molecular clock studies: an example using turtles. The American Naturalist, 165, 137–146.
  • NESSOV, L. A. 1995. On some Mesozoic turtles of the Fergana Depression (Kyrgyzstan) ad Dzhungar Alatau Ridge (Kazakhstan). Russian Journal of Herpetology, 2, 134–141.
  • NORELL, M. 1992. Taxic origin and temporal diversity: the effect of phylogeny. 89–118. In NOVACEK, M. J. and WHEELER, Q. D. (eds). Extinction and Phylogeny. Columbia University Press, New York, 253 pp.
  • PAUL, C. R. C. 2003. Ghost ranges. 91–106. In DONOGHUE, P. C. J. and SMITH, M. P. (eds). Telling the evolutionary time: molecular clocks and the fossil record. Taylor & Francis, London, 296 pp.
  • ROBINSON, P., GUNNELL, G. F., WALSH, S. L., CLYDE, W. C., STORER, J. E. and STUCK, R. K. 2004. Wasatchian Through Duchesnean Biochronology. 106–162. In WOODBURNE, M. O. (ed.). Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic mammals of North America. Columbia University Press, New York, 391 pp.
  • SCHEYER, T. M., SANDER, P. M., JOYCE, W. G., BÖHME, W. and WITZEL, U. 2007. A plywood structure in the shell of fossil and living soft-shelled turtles (Trionychidae) and its evolutionary implications. Organisms, Diversity and Evolution, 7, 136–144.
  • SHAFFER, H. B., MEYLAN, P. and MCKNIGHT, M. L. 1997. Tests of turtle phylogeny: molecular, morphological, and paleontological approaches. Systematic Biology, 46, 235–268.
  • SWOFFORD, D. L. 2002. PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and other methods). Version 4b10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
  • VERZILIN, N. N., KHOSATZKY, L. I., VU DIN LI and NESSOV, L. A. 1970. New paleontological data on the border between Lower and Upper Cretaceous in Fergana. Vestnik Leningradskogo Universiteta, Serija Geologii i Geografii, 3, 43–50.
  • WAGNER, P. J. 1998. A likelihood approach for evaluating estimates of phylogenetic relationships among fossil taxa. Paleobiology, 24, 430–449.
  • WOOD, R. C. and PATTERSON, B. 1973. A fossil trionychid turtle from South America. Breviora, 405, 1–10.
Wiley Online Library