Re: Where, oh where do those turtles come from?

[Pieter.Depuydt@rug.ac.be]

Dr. Holtz wrote (thank you Dr. Holtz for letting is know): 

> > Lee concludes that turtles are the derived descendants of the pareiasaurs

Tuck answered:

>     Am I the only one here who rather likes this thought?

No, there are at least two of us (and Darren Naish I think makes 
three).

Another recent publication which might be of interest is:

Lee, Gow and Kitching ('the Old Man of the Karoo'): Anatomy and 
relationships of the pareiasaur Pareiasuchus nasicornis from the 
upper Permian of Zambia. Paleontology 40(2), pp 307-335, 1997.

In which a beautiful preserved and prepared pareiasaur skull is 
described, again strenghtening the pareiasaur-turtle connection.

Almost forgotten is Eunotosaurus, that strange reptile from the 
Tapinocephalus biozone of the Karoo, featuring as the turtle ancestor 
in the old paleontology handbooks. In Carroll's 'Vertebrate 
Paleontology' it appears again with a new reconstruction, and gets an 
indeterminate place within Parareptilia. In his 1993 Science paper, 
Lee suggested (by the way) Eunotosaurus was a late surviving and 
quite derived caseid synapsid ('pelycosaur'). Does anyone know if the 
promised "Eunotosaurus as caseid" paper has already been published 
somewhere....???

Regards,

Pieter Depuydt