We describe the skull of Ragechelus sahelica, n. gen., n. sp., a pleurodiran Pelomedusoides turtle, the oldest skull known of the Erymnochelyinae. The specimen comes from the surroundings of Indamane village, from a littoral late Maastrichtian level of the Iullemeden sedimentary basin (southwestern Niger, Africa). It is compared on the one hand to the members of the subfamily including remains from the neighboring Ibeceten locality, but from an underlying continental Senonian, and, on the other hand, particularly to the bothremydid Nigeremys gigantea (Bergounioux & Crouzel, 1968), from a littoral Maastrichtian level close to that of Indamane, and from a closer to Indamane locality than Ibeceten. The associated fauna is reviewed in its stratigraphic context. Palaeogeographic considerations and systematic relationships indicate Erymnochelyinae widely diversified, in Africa from that time onwards, up to these days in Madagascar and notably with incursions in Western Europe during the Eocene times.
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Georgios L. Georgalis, Daniel Zoboli, AdÃn PÃrez-GarcÃa, Gian Luigi Pillola & Massimo Delfino (2020)
The occurrence of Eocenochelus (Testudines, Pleurodira) from Sardinia supports palaeogeographic reconstruction of the proximity of the island to continental western Europe during the Eocene.
Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 126(3): 833-846.
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/RIPS/article/view/14443/13402
In this paper, we describe pleurodire turtle material from the island of Sardinia, Italy, originating from two Eocene localities of the Cixerri Formation. The more complete among the two specimens bears strong resemblance with the continental Western European Eocenochelus eremberti and is tentatively referred to the same species, while the second, less complete specimen is only provisionally referred to the genus Eocenochelus. The new Sardinian turtles add to the so far scarcely documented fossil record of pleurodires in Italy, while it ranks as among the very few Paleogene vertebrates known from the island. The identification of the widespread Eocene Western European genus Eocenochelus in the fossil record of Sardinia supports recent palaeogeographic reconstructions of the island, according to which the Sardinia-Corsica Massif was located rather close to mainland Europe and was subjected to a significant, counterclockwise rotation during the Paleogene.