A reassessment of the referral of an isolated skull from the Late Cretaceous of Uzbekistan to the stem-testudinoid turtle genus Lindholmemys
Igor G. Danilov and James F. Parham, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 2005, 25(4):770-783
A fossil turtle skull (ZISP PH 1/17) from the Late Cretaceous (upper Turonian, Bissekty Formation) of Dzharakuduk (Uzbekistan, Asia) was used to score the skull characters for the genus Lindholmemys (a stem testudinoid) in a recent phylogenetic analysis. A description of ZISP PH 1/17 and a new cladistic analysis reveals no characters to support its referral to Lindholmemys elegans or to the stem-testudinoid lineage. ZISP PH 1/17 is very similar to North American Adocus, differing mainly in characters of the upper jaw. Therefore, we hypothesize that ZISP PH 1/17 is the skull of either Shachemys ancestralis or “Adocus” aksary, adocid shell taxa from Dzharakuduk. Pending additional discoveries and description of turtles from Dzharakuduk, we refer ZISP PH 1/17 to Adocidae, gen. et sp. indet.