Revisión histórica y sistemática de las primeras citas de quelonios del cretácico español

Abstract

The references to chelonians of the Iberian Lower Cretaceous before the decade of 1940s commonly contains mentions to some taxa that has not been identified again in the Iberian fossil record. It is also common that these references cannot be confirmed on the present time because they have been lost or because of the nature of the characters used for its classification. In this paper, the José Royo y Gomez's references to the species "Tretosternum" punctatum from Morella (Castellón), Hylaeochelys aff. latiscutata from Los Caños (Soria), and Pleurosternon portlandicum? from Benagéber (Valencia) are reviewed. These references are respectively reinterpreted as Helochelydra sp., Chelonii indet., and Pleurosternon sp. This reinterpretation is possible because of the location of some of the specimens that Royo y Gómez studied at the collections of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, and by examining the unpublished documentation about these specimens, preserved on the Archive of this institution. In this way, the specimens originally described by Royo y Gómez as "Tretosternum" punctatum have been located, and their diagnostic characters have been studied. One specimen of the family Solemydidae of Los Caños has been recognized at the photographic archive of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales. The specimens of the Sierra de Alcarama (La Rioja) assigned by Sánchez Lozano (1894) to Helochelys sp. are reinterpreted as ?Helochelydra sp.