Primer registro de Chitracephalus dumonii/= ?Salasemys pulcherrima (Testudines: Pleurodira) (Cretácico Inferior) en Europa Central. Ampliación del conocimiento de las tortugas similares a las Matamata

Abstract

Here we describe the first record of the turtle Chitracephalus dumonii Dollo, 1884 (syn. ?Salasemys pulcherrima Fuentes Vidarte et al., 2003) from Early Cretaceous (Berriasian) deposits in northwestern Germany. Several carapace remains have been found within the material collected by h. f. w. Grabbe in the the early 1880s, deposited in the Geoscience Centre of the Göttingen University, which show typical morphological characters of this species. It represents the stratigraphically oldest representative of Chitracephalus (syn. ?Salasemys). The supposed phylogenetic relationship of this species in the relation to the Late Jurassic Platycephalus oberndorferi wagner, 1853 (Platychelidae) and the modern Chelus fimbriatus Schneider, 1783 (Chelidae) is discussed.