''Chelonides'' is a genus of late

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...

turtle from marine deposits in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

, Germany.

Taxonomy

The name ''Chelonides wittei'' was coined by Maack (1869) for a partial shell (GZG 773–1) a partial skull (GZG 773–2), and isolated shell and girdle elements (GZG 773–3 to 773–17) from

Hannover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German States of Germany, state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germa ...

, northwestern Germany. Later, Portis (1878) erected a second species, ''C. robusta'', for elements of the shell (GZG 769–11 to 769–19). Hay (1905) considered ''Chelonides'' preoccupied without comment and erected ''Anaphotidemys'' as a replacement. Kuhn (1964) mistakenly considered the genus preoccupied by Chelonides Boisduval, 1840, a tribe of nocturnal lepidopterans. In their overview of Upper Jurassic and Early Cretaceous turtles from northwestern Germany, Karl et al. (2007) treated the two nominal ''Chelonides'' species as synonymous with the plesiochelyid ''

Plesiochelys ''Plesiochelys'' is a genus of late Jurassic European and Asian turtle. The type species is ''Plesiochelys etalloni''. Fossil records have discovered ''Plesiochelys bigleri'' and ''Plesiochelys etalloni'' from the Kimmeridge Clay of England and ...

'' without justification. A 2017 overview of thalassochelydians, however, indicates that ''Chelonides'' is a valid genus of eurysternid, although, ''C. robusta'' is a ''nomen dubium''.Anquetin, J., Puntener, C., and Joyce, W.G., 2017. A review of the fossil record of turtles of the clade Thalassochelydia. Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History 58 (2):317-369.

References

* Thalassochelydia Prehistoric turtle genera Kimmeridgian genera Late Jurassic turtles Late Jurassic reptiles of Europe Jurassic Germany Fossils of Germany Fossil taxa described in 1869 {{paleo-turtle-stub