Fossil turtles of Slovakia: New material and a review of the previous record

Abstract

This paper presents the first review of the fauna of fossil turtles of Slovakia. It is focused on the turtle assemblages from 11 localities (Sandberg Hill, Waitov Lom, Borsky Svaty Jur, Kamenica nad Hronom, Ivanovce, Hajnáčka, Žiar nad Hronom, Bojnice, Dreveník, Ginovce, and Levice) dated from the Middle Miocene to the Pleistocene. In addition, we describe new turtle material from the Hajnáčka and Sandberg Hill localities and, for the first time, from the Borský Svätý Jur locality. This new data expands our knowledge of the composition of the fossil turtle fauna of Slovakia and the morphology of its representatives. It also enables a more detailed comparison of this fauna with the contemporaneous turtle faunas of Central and Eastern Europe. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012.