''Acanthochelys'' is a genus of

turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...

s, the spiny swamp turtles, in the family

Chelidae Chelidae is one of three living families of the turtle suborder Pleurodira, and are commonly called Austro-South American side-neck turtles. The family is distributed in Australia, New Guinea, parts of Indonesia, and throughout most of South Amer ...

, subfamily Chelinae, found in South America. Until recently, the species of this genus were considered to be members of the genus '' Platemys'', but were moved to the resurrected genus originally described by Gray (1873) based on the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

by monotypy ''Acanthochelys spixii''.Iverson, J. B. 1992. A Revised Checklist with Distribution Maps of the Turtles of the World. Privately Printed, Richmond: Indiana. 364pp.

Taxonomy

Current nomenclature for this genus follows that of van Dijk et al. (2012):Peter Paul van Dijk, John B. Iverson, H. Bradley Shaffer, Roger Bour, and Anders G.J. Rhodin. 2012. Turtles of the World, 2012 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status. Chelonian Research Monographs No. 5, pp. 000.243–000.328. * Big-headed pantanal swamp turtle (''A. macrocephala'' Rhodin, Mittermeier, and McMorris 1984)Rhodin, Anders G.J., Mittermeier, Russell A., and McMorris, J. Robert. 1984. ''Platemys macrocephala'', a new species of chelid turtle from central Bolivia and the Pantanal region of Brazil. ''Herpetologica'' 40(1):38–46. * Chaco side-necked turtle (''A. pallidipectoris'' Freiberg 1945)Freiberg, Marcos A. 1945. Una nueva especie de tortuga del genero ''Platemys'' Wagler. ''Physis'' 20:19–23. * Brazilian radiolated swamp turtle (''A. radiolata'' Mikan 1820)Mikan, Johann Christian. 1820. Delectus Florae et Faunae Brasiliensis. Fasciculus Primus. Vindobonae: 6 pp., 6 pls. * Black spine-neck swamp turtle (''A. spixii'' Duméril and Bibron 1835)Duméril, André Marie Constant and Bibron, Gabriel. 1835. Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complète des Reptiles. Tome Second. Paris: Roret, 680 pp.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1932390 Turtle genera Turtles of South America Taxa named by John Edward Gray Taxonomy articles created by Polbot