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Meiolaniid
Meiolaniidae is an extinct family of large, probably herbivorous stem-group turtles with heavily armored heads and clubbed tails known from South America and Australasia. Though once believed to be cryptodires, they are not closely related to any living species of turtle, and lie outside crown group Testudines, having diverged from them around or prior to the Middle Jurassic. They are best known from the last surviving genus, '' Meiolania'', which lived in Australia from the Miocene until the Pleistocene, and insular species that lived on Lord Howe Island and New Caledonia during the Pleistocene and possibly the Holocene for the latter. Meiolaniids are part of the broader grouping of Meiolaniformes, which contains more primitive turtles species lacking the distinctive morphology of meiolaniids, known from the Early Cretaceous-Paleocene of South America and Australia. Meiolaniidae includes a total of five different genera, with '' Niolamia'' and '' Gaffneylania'' native to Eocen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meiolania Platyceps
''Meiolania'' is an extinct genus of Meiolaniidae, meiolaniid Stem-group, stem-turtle native to Australasia throughout much of the Cenozoic. ''Meiolania'' was a large turtle, with the shell alone ranging from in length. Four species are currently recognized, although the validity of two of them is disputed. ''Meiolania'' was first described as a species of lizard related to ''Megalania'' by Richard Owen towards the end of the 19th century, before the continued discovery of additional fossils solidified its placement as a kind of turtle. The best known species is ''M. platyceps'', known from hundreds of specimens collected in Pleistocene strata of Lord Howe Island. The oldest known species is ''M. brevicollis'' from the Miocene of mainland Australia. Other species include ''M. mackayi'' from Pleistocene New Caledonia, which may be synonymous with ''M. platyceps'', ''? M. damelipi'' from Holocene Vanuatu, which may represent a non-meiolaniid turtle, and the Wyandotte species, an unn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meiolania
''Meiolania'' is an extinct genus of meiolaniid stem-turtle native to Australasia throughout much of the Cenozoic. ''Meiolania'' was a large turtle, with the shell alone ranging from in length. Four species are currently recognized, although the validity of two of them is disputed. ''Meiolania'' was first described as a species of lizard related to '' Megalania'' by Richard Owen towards the end of the 19th century, before the continued discovery of additional fossils solidified its placement as a kind of turtle. The best known species is ''M. platyceps'', known from hundreds of specimens collected in Pleistocene strata of Lord Howe Island. The oldest known species is ''M. brevicollis'' from the Miocene of mainland Australia. Other species include ''M. mackayi'' from Pleistocene New Caledonia, which may be synonymous with ''M. platyceps'', ''? M. damelipi'' from Holocene Vanuatu, which may represent a non-meiolaniid turtle, and the Wyandotte species, an unnamed form from Pleistoce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niolamia
''Niolamia'' is an extinct genus of South American meiolaniid turtle with a long and complex history. Like its relatives, ''Niolamia'' was a robust and heavily armored terrestrial turtle with large, horn like scales covering its head and a tail encased by rings of bone. This heavily armored build may have served the animal during intraspecific combat during courtship, though such encounters likely did not involve the horns and frill, which are thought to serve more of a display function. Scans of the skull reveal that ''Niolamia'' likely had a great sense of smell but only low frequency hearing, indicating that these animals communicated more through chemical signals and smells than through sound. ''Niolamia'' is one of only two named meiolaniid turtles from South America, the other being '' Gaffneylania''. Given that this family is primarily distributed throughout the Neogene and Quaternary of Australasia, this makes ''Niolamia'' an important piece in the evolutionary history a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaffneylania
''Gaffneylania'' is an extinct genus of meiolaniid turtle from the Eocene of Patagonia. ''Gaffneylania'' is among the earliest known meiolaniids and, much like its later relatives, possessed characteristic horns atop its head. The shell appears to have had a serrated margin. ''Gaffneylania'' is a monotypic genus, only containing a single species, ''Gaffneylania auricularis''. History and naming The first remains of ''Gaffneylania'' were uncovered in the summer of 2010 during fieldwork led by researchers of the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio and the Museo de Historia Natural de San Rafael. The fossils were recovered in the south-east of the Chubut Province of Argentina in the lower parts of the Sarmiento Formation. The holotype specimen, MPEF-PV 10556, consists of a partial skeleton including parts of the skull, most of the mandible, various limb remains and vertebrae as well as osteoderms and various parts of the carapace and plastron. Multiple referred specimen are also k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninjemys
''Ninjemys oweni'' is an extinct large meiolaniid stem-turtle from Pleistocene Queensland and possibly New South Wales (Australia). It overall resembled its relative, '' Meiolania'', save that the largest pair of horns on its head stuck out to the sides, rather than point backwards, the larger scales at the back of its skull and the tail club which is made up of only two tail rings rather than four. With a shell length of approximately it is a large turtle and among the largest meiolaniids. ''Ninjemys'' is primarily known from a well preserved skull and associated tail armor, which were initially thought to have belonged to the giant monitor lizard Megalania (''Varanus priscus''). History and naming The remains of ''Ninjemys'' were found at the King's Creek locality in Darling Downs, Queensland, in 1879 by G. F. Bennett, an Australian collector. The King's Creek deposit is believed to be of Pleistocene age, though the precise dating is uncertain. Recognizing the fossil skull a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warkalania
''Warkalania'' is an extinct genus of Australian meiolaniid turtle from the Oligocene or early Miocene of Riversleigh, Queensland. While other meiolaniids are known for their elaborate headcrests or long horns, ''Warkalania'' only possesses very short horns that form a somewhat continuous ridge across the back of the head. The only known species of this genus, ''Warkalania carinaminor'', is the oldest named meiolaniid turtle of Australia. History and naming Although the presence of meiolaniids in the Riversleigh fauna had been known on the basis of fragmentary remains since at least 1987, the first diagnostic remains were discovered by Neville Pledge in the form of a partial skull from strata dating to the late Oligocene to early Miocene. These remains were described by Eugene S. Gaffney, Michael Archer and Arthur White as a new genus of meiolaniid turtle they named ''Warkalania carinaminor''. The holotype is specimen QMF 22649, a right squamosal bone including the tympanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Bathans Fauna
The St Bathans fauna is found in the lower Bannockburn Formation of the Manuherikia Group of Central Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand. It comprises a suite of fossilised prehistoric animals from the late Early Miocene (Altonian) period, with an age range of 19–16 million years ago. The layer in which the fossils are found derives from littoral zone sediments deposited in a shallow, freshwater lake, with an area of 5600 km2 from present day Central Otago to Bannockburn and the Nevis Valley in the west; to Naseby in the east; and from the Waitaki Valley in the north to Ranfurly in the south. The lake was bordered by an extensive floodplain containing herbaceous and grassy wetland habitats with peat-forming swamp–woodland. At that time the climate was warm with a distinctly subtropical Australian climate and the surrounding vegetation was characterised by casuarinas, eucalypts and palms as well as podocarps, araucarias and southern beeches. The fossiliferous l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tail Club
In zoology, a tail club is a bony mass at the end of the tail of some dinosaurs and of some mammals, most notably the Ankylosauridae, ankylosaurids and the glyptodonts, as well as meiolaniid turtles. It is thought that this was a form of defensive Armour (zoology), armour or weapon that was used to defend against predators, much in the same way as a thagomizer, possessed by stegosaurids, though at least in glyptodonts it is hypothesized it was used in Display (zoology), fighting for mating rights. Among dinosaurs, the club was present mainly in ankylosaurids, although Sauropoda, sauropods like ''Shunosaurus'' and ''Kotasaurus'' also possessed a tail club. Victoria Arbour has established that ankylosaurid tails could generate enough force to break bone during impacts. In a separate study, Arbour suggested tail clubs as well as large armoured herbivores as a whole evolve when animals are too large to hide and too small to avoid predation by size alone. Morphology In ankylosaurid di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patagonia
Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and Patagonian Desert, deserts, Plateaus, tablelands, and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south. The northern limit of the region is not precisely defined; the Colorado River, Argentina, Colorado and Barrancas River, Barrancas rivers, which run from the Andes to the Atlantic, are commonly considered the northern limit of Argentine Patagonia. The archipelago of Tierra del Fuego is sometimes considered part of Patagonia. Most geographers and historians locate the northern limit of Chilean Patagonia at Huincul Fault, in Araucanía R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Caledonia
New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of the French Republic, a legal status unique in overseas France, and is enshrined in a dedicated chapter of the French Constitution. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre (New Caledonia), Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines (New Caledonia), Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. French people, especially locals, call Grande Terre , a nickname also used more generally for the entire New Caledonia. Kanak people#Agitation for independence, Pro-independence Kanak parties use the name (''pron.'' ) to refer to New Caledonia, a term coined in the 1980s from the ethnic name of the indi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meiolaniformes
Meiolaniformes is an extinct clade of stem-group turtles, defined as all taxa more closely related to ''Meiolania'' than to Cryptodira and Pleurodira. It is known from the Early Cretaceous to the Holocene of Australia, Oceania and South America. Some Eurasian taxa have been suggested to be part of the group, but this is disputed. The oldest member of Meiolaniformes is Australian Early Cretaceous '' Otwayemys''. Taxonomy The clade as currently defined contains the following taxa: * †''Chubutemys'' Gaffney et al. 2007 - Aptian, Cerro Barcino Formation, Argentina * †'' Otwayemys'' Gaffney et al. 1998 - Aptian, Eumeralla Formation, Australia * †'' Patagoniaemys'' Sterli and de la Fuente 2011 Upper Campanian-Lower Maastrichtian, La Colonia Formation, Argentina * †'' Peligrochelys'' Sterli and de la Fuente 2011 Danian, Salamanca Formation, Argentina * †'' Trapalcochelys'' Sterli et al. 2013 Upper Campanian, Allen Formation, Argentina * †Meiolaniidae Lydekker 1887, Eocen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Eos, Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isoto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
