Prionochelys Explained

Prionochelys is an extinct genus of pancheloniid from the Mooreville Chalk and Eutaw Formations of Alabama. It consists of a single species, P. matutina.^[1]

Taxonomy

Prionochelys was originally assigned to the family Toxochelyidae. A 2018 paper found it to be on the stem of Cheloniidae, the family to which most modern sea turtles belong, forming a monophyletic grouping with Ctenochelys and Peritresius.^[2] In 2019, Gentry et al. assigned Prionochelys to the extinct Ctenochelyidae family. A cladogram from their analysis:^[3]

Notes and References

1. R . Zangerl . 1953 . The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama. Part 3. The turtles of the family Protostegidae. Part 4. The turtles of the family Toxochelyidae . Fieldiana, Geology, Memoirs . 3 . 61–277.
2. Gentry . Andrew D. . 2018-11-01 . Prionochelys matutina Zangerl, 1953 (Testudines: Pan-Cheloniidae) from the Late Cretaceous of the United States and the evolution of epithecal ossifications in marine turtles . PeerJ . en . 6 . e5876 . 10.7717/peerj.5876 . 30402356 . 2167-8359 . free . 6215699 .
3. Andrew D. Gentry . Jun A. Ebersole . Caitlin R. Kiernan . 2019 . Asmodochelys parhami, a new fossil marine turtle from the Campanian Demopolis Chalk and the stratigraphic congruence of competing marine turtle phylogenies . Royal Society Open Science . 6 . 12 . Article ID 191950 . 10.1098/rsos.191950 . 31903219 . 6936288 . 2019RSOS....691950G .