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Shell bone histology of solemydid turtles (stem Testudines): palaeoecological implications

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Abstract

Lately, solemydid turtles have been repeatedly recovered as stem Testudines, indicating that they belong to neither one of the two major branches of crown turtles, the Pancryptodira and Panpleurodira. Despite their wide temporal (Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous) and spatial (North America and Europe) distributions, solemydid turtles are not particularly well known, as exemplified by the fact that only a single skull has been described for the whole group so far. Furthermore, the palaeoecology of solemydid turtles is still contested with hypotheses ranging from semi-aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. However, the habitat preference of stem Testudines, such as solemydids, is important to understand the evolution and early radiation of the turtle crown, which is primitively aquatic. Here we describe the shell bone microanatomy and histological microstructures of solemydid turtles using a broad sample of taxa of different ages and localities, as well as review previous histological accounts, to elucidate the palaeoecology of the group independent of the geological setting and gross anatomy of the fossil finds. Our results indicate that Solemydidae share unique histological features pertaining to their strongly ornamented shell bones, which a) in cases allow taxonomic identification of even small shell fragments and b) unambiguously corroborate a terrestrial lifestyle of its members. The latter further supports a terrestrial lifestyle preference of most representatives of the turtle stem.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Olivier Rieppel and William Simpson (FM Chicago), Donald Brinkman and James Gardner (RTMP Drumheller), Sandra Chapman (NHMUK London), Carl Mehling (AMNH New York), Kenneth Carpenter (formerly DMNS Denver), Carmelo Corral (MCNA Vitoria), Patricia Pérez Dios (MNCN Madrid) and Humberto Astibia and Xabier Pereda Suberbiola (UPV/EHU Bilbao) for access to specimens under their care and, in cases, also for the loan of materials for destructive sampling. We further thank Mirjam Fehlmann (PIMUZ Zurich) for her work in a research practical on solemydid shell histology. Jérémy Anquetin (Porrentruy) and one anonymous reviewer are thanked for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. The study was partly funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant no. 31003A_149506 to TMS).

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The authors declare to have no conflict of interest.

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Scheyer, T.M., Pérez-García, A. & Murelaga, X. Shell bone histology of solemydid turtles (stem Testudines): palaeoecological implications. Org Divers Evol 15, 199–212 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-014-0188-0

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