Papoulemys Tong, 1998

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 : 46

Papoulemys Tong, 1998

Neochelys laurenti (Tong) Lapparent de Broin, 2001

TYPE SPECIES: Papoulemys laurenti Tong, 1998 .

INCLUDED SPECIES: Papoulemys laurenti .

DISTRIBUTION: Early Eocene of France.

DIAGNOSIS: A podocnemidid known from the skull; skull relatively high and narrow in contrast to Bauruemys ; orbits facing dorsolaterally; interorbital groove such as found in Podocnemis absent; temporal emargination less than in Podocnemis ; parietal-quadratojugal contact long; cheek emargination slight; postorbital large in contrast to Podocnemis ; medial expansion of triturating surface, median maxillary ridge, present; accessory ridge or ridges absent in triturating surface as in Neochelys ; fossa precolumellaris present but shallow as in Podocnemis expansa in contrast to deep as in Erymnochelys ; foramen jugulare posterius closed; interparietal scale small equilateral triangle as in Neochelys ; horizontal occipital shelf absent; differs from Neochelys in condylus occipitalis consisting mostly of exoccipitals, quadratojugal exposure on cheek wider.

DISCUSSION: Lapparent de Broin (2001: 170) considers this genus a species of Neochelys . Considering the large number of common characters, this is a reasonable interpretation. There are differentiating characters, however, and as the other known Neochelys skulls ( Jiménez Fuentes, 1988: fig. 3; Lapparent de Broin, 2001: 170–171; 2003a: table 1) have so far not been described or figured with sutures, it is hard to judge what the diagnostic skull characters for the European species of Neochelys might be. Therefore, we keep Papoulemys and find it to come out in a trichotomy with Neochelys and the tribe Stereogenyini . It is possible that a revision of Neochelys using the now available skull material (including N. fajumensis ) would place laurenti in that genus.