Bauruemys Kischlat, 1994

Gaffney, Eugene S., Meylan, Peter A., Wood, Roger C., Simons, Elwyn & De Almeida Campos, Diogenes, 2011, Evolution Of The Side-Necked Turtles: The Family Podocnemididae, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2011 (350), pp. 1-237 : 12-13

Bauruemys Kischlat, 1994

TYPE SPECIES: Podocnemis elegans Suárez, 1969a .

INCLUDED SPECIES: Bauruemys elegans .

DISTRIBUTION: Late Cretaceous of northern South America.

REVISED DIAGNOSIS: A podocnemidid known from the skull and postcrania; temporal emargination extensive, second neural consistently four sided, uniquely among the Podocnemididae ; skull relatively wide and flat in contrast to Podocnemis , orbits facing dorsally rather than dorsolaterally as in Podocnemis ; interorbital groove such as found in Podocnemis absent; postorbital large in contrast to Podocnemis ; parietal-quadratojugal contact small; cheek emargination does not reach above level of orbit; medial expansion of triturating surface, median maxillary ridge, absent, wide concavity on the midline, formed by the premaxillae and anterior maxilla present; accessory ridge in triturating surface absent; vomer present; vomer-maxilla contact narrow; fossa precolumellaris deep as in Peiropemys ; foramen jugulare posterius open laterally; basioccipital-opisthotic contact narrow in contrast to all other Podocnemididae in which it is wider; tuberculum basioccipitale not widely separat- ed as in all other Podocnemididae ; interparietal scale equilateral triangle; cavum pterygoidei with small anterior opening for foramen cavernosum; horizontal occipital shelf present as in Podocnemis ; chorda tympani not enclosed in processus retroarticularis; cervical centra not saddle shaped. See table 1.

Small shell (less than 150 mm carapace length) differing from other South American Cretaceous and Early Tertiary Pelomedusoides in having distinct surface sculpture of concentric rings, nuchal bone width equals length; six neurals (rarely seven) extending to costal seven; second neural always four sided; axillary buttress extending onto second costal and reaching to third peripheral anteriorly; suture for axillary buttress broad medially and narrow laterally; second costal thickened to support axillary buttress; bridge peripherals guttered dorsally; D-shaped iliac scar that does not cross from the eighth onto the seventh costal; internal gutter of posterior peripherals and pygal absent; gular scales usually not restricted to epiplastra; intergular scale narrow in contrast to bothremydids; short contact of humeral scales on midline; pectoral scales contact entoplastron and epiplastra, but do not contact mesoplastra.