Presence of a chelydrid turtle in the late Pliocene Camp dels Ninots locality (Spain)

Abstract

Abstract The late Pliocene locality Camp dels Ninots is a fossil Lagerstätte that yielded an exceptionally well preserved vertebrate fauna. Several turtles were reported from this locality and were all assigned to the living species Mauremys leprosa. We describe here a second turtle taxon based on carapace material. This new taxon is identified as Chelydropsis cf. pontica. It is the first report of a chelydrid turtle in the Pliocene of the Iberian peninsula. This discovery extends the range of the species to the southwest of Europe and thereby better documents the space and time distribution of snapping turtles before their supposedly rapid disappearance in Europe.