Cyclanorbinae, also known commonly as the flapshell turtles, is a subfamily of softshell turtles in the family Trionychidae. The subfamily is native to Africa and Asia.

Cyclanorbinae
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous to recent, 70.6–0 Ma
Indian flapshell turtle
Lissemys punctata
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Suborder: Cryptodira
Family: Trionychidae
Subfamily: Cyclanorbinae
Lydekker, 1889

Taxonomy

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Morphological evidence supports Cyclanorbinae being the sister group to the Plastomeninae, an extinct subfamily of softshell turtles that inhabited North America from the Cretaceous to the Eocene.[1][2]

Genera

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The subfamily Cyclanorbinae contains the following three extant genera.[3]

One extinct prehistoric genus is also known from fossil remains: Nemegtemys Danilov et al., 2014, from the Cretaceous of Mongolia.[4]

Geographic range

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Species in the genera Cyclanorbis and Cycloderma are found in Africa; species in the genus Lissemys are found in Asia.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Joyce, Walter G.; Revan, Ariel; Lyson, Tyler R.; Danilov, Igor G. (October 2009). "Two New Plastomenine Softshell Turtles from the Paleocene of Montana and Wyoming". Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 50 (2): 307–325. doi:10.3374/014.050.0202. ISSN 0079-032X. S2CID 85505337.
  2. ^ Jasinski, Steven E.; Heckert, Andrew B.; Sailar, Ciara; Lichtig, Asher J.; Lucas, Spencer G.; Dodson, Peter (2022-07-01). "A softshell turtle (Testudines: Trionychidae: Plastomeninae) from the uppermost Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Hell Creek Formation, North Dakota, USA, with implications for the evolutionary relationships of plastomenines and other trionychids". Cretaceous Research. 135: 105172. Bibcode:2022CrRes.13505172J. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105172. ISSN 0195-6671. S2CID 246803273.
  3. ^ Turtle Taxonomy Working Group (Rhodin, Anders G.J.; Parham, James F.; van Dijk, Peter Paul; Iverson, John B.) (2009)."Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy and Synonymy, 2009 Update". Archived 2016-04-06 at the Wayback Machine Chelonian Research Monographs (5): 000.39-000.84. (Cyclanorbinae, pp. 000.55-000.56).
  4. ^ "Fossilworks: Nemegtemys ". fossilworks.org. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  5. ^ "Cyclanorbinae". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.

Further reading

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  • Lydekker R (1889). Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia and Amphibia in the British Museum (Natural History). Part III. Containing the Order Chelonia. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xviii + 239 pp. (Cyclanorbinae, new subfamily, p. x).