Kallokibotion bajazidi, named by Nopcsa in 1923, is an extinct reptile belonging to ' order Testudines . It lived in the Upper Cretaceous ( Maastrichtian , between 70 and 66 million years ago), and its remains and fossils have been found in Europe ( Romania ).
Description[]
This animal had to be large: in an incomplete specimen, the skull was only about 40 centimeters long (the largest of all turtles) and the length must exceed 2.5 meters (Zittel et al., 1932). The carapace was broad and relatively flat, and it is assumed that this animal was of aquatic habits. The prefrontal formed largely of the cranial vault in a manner similar to the archaic turtles such as Kayentachelys from the Early Jurassic. The surfaces triturate were very narrow, as in Glyptops . The mandible was very deep (still similar to Kayentachelys ); unlike any other known turtle, Kallokibotion had bone with extension medial pterygoids very close to the center. The palatine bone was equipped with parasagittal grooves on the ventral surface. The vertebrae were anficele cervical (from quarries articular surfaces both front and rear), with high postzigapofisi, shopping centers and a narrow spinal ventral hull low; the caudal vertebrae were also anficele with zigapofisi concave front (unlike those of other turtles). There were no major mesoplastra triangular, separating hyoplastron and hypoplastron for most of their amplitude.
Taxonomy[]
Kallokibotion bajazidi was described for the first time in 1923 by Franz Nopcsa , based on fossils found in the area of Hateg , Romania. This animal has been approached in the past to baenidi , a group of turtles typical of North America (Gaffney, 1975); other studies have considered a first criptodiro baseline (Gaffney and Meylan, 1992) and subsequently a turtle Archaic uncertain affinity (Anquetin, 2012). Further analysis, however, showed affinity with the group of meiolaniidi , a group of turtles by the archaic features and the remarkable expansion (Sterli, 2012). The uncertain systematic position of Kallokibotion is due to a number of primitive features ( plesiomorfiche ) of this animal, shared with meiolaniidi and the clade of paracriptodiri.