Podocnemis unifilis Troschel, 1848

Gaffney, Eugene S., Meylan, Peter A., Wood, Roger C., Simons, Elwyn & De Almeida Campos, Diogenes, 2011, Evolution Of The Side-Necked Turtles: The Family Podocnemididae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (350), pp. 1-237 : 30

Podocnemis unifilis Troschel, 1848

SYNONYMY: See Boulenger (1889), Siebenrock (1902, 1904), Wermuth and Mertens (1961, 1977), Pritchard and Trebbau (1984), Iverson (1992), Mittermeier and Wilson (1974).

TYPE SPECIMEN AND LOCALITY: See Iverson (1992).

DIAGNOSIS: See Siebenrock (1902), Williams (1954a) and Pritchard and Trebbau (1984).

REFERRED MATERIAL: AMNH Herpetology 58200, NMV 1824, AMNH Herpetology 58104, AMNH Herpetology 58198, FMNH Herpetology 98865, FMNH Herpetology 98926, FMNH Herpetology 45657, FMNH Herpetology 211758, USNM Herpetology 313861.

PREVIOUS WORK: Boulenger (1889), Siebenrock (1902, 1904), Williams (1954a) provide useful information. Siebenrock (1904) has descriptions of the whole animal with figures; Pritchard and Trebbau (1984) figure skull and shell with sutures. Williams (1954a) figures the palate. Groombridge (1982) has a general literature review.

DISCUSSION: Although relatively common in collections and referred to in many systematic works, there is no rigorous, comparative morphologic diagnosis for this species. We have included new figures of the skull of Podocnemis unifilis for comparison (figs. 39, 40). Among the references indicat- ed, Siebenrock (1902), Williams (1954a), Pritchard and Trebbau (1984), do provide descriptive information particularly useful in preserved specimens but few comparative osteologic characters.