Kenyemys Wood, 1983

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 : 59-61

Kenyemys Wood, 1983

TYPE SPECIES: Kenyemys williamsi Wood, 1983 .

DISTRIBUTION: Pliocene of Kenya.

DIAGNOSIS: From Wood (1983: 74):

Differing from all other members of the family by the following combination of characters: (1) a series of elongate tuberosities forming an interrupted keel extending along the midline rearward from the dorsal surface of the second

TABLE 4

Comparison of Shells of Six South American Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary Podocnemidid Turtles neural bone; (2) six neural bones forming a continuous series, the anterior end of the first abutting directly against the rear margin of the nuchal bone and the sixth one being heptagonal; (3) outer corners of nuchal bone extending beyond lateral margins of first vertebral scute; (4) pentagonal shape of first vertebral scute; (5) only eighth and posterior part of seventh pairs of pleural bones [costal bones in our nomenclature] meeting at midline of carapace; (6) anterior plastral lobe truncated; (7) triangular intergular scute not overlapping anterior end of entoplastron and only partially separating the gular scutes along the midline axis of the plastron.

DISCUSSION: The best statement about the relationships of yet another shell-only species is ‘‘The relationship of Kenyemys to other African pelomedusids [5 Pelomedusoides] is at present obscure’’ ( Wood, 1983: 79).