Stupendemys geographicus Wood, 1976

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 : 67-68

Stupendemys geographicus Wood, 1976

TYPE SPECIMEN: MCNC 244, medial portion of carapace, left femur, parts of scapulocoracoid, cervical vertebra (eighth?), Wood (1976: figs. 1, 3, 9).

TYPE LOCALITY: West of Quebrado Tio Gregorio, near town of Urumaco, Venezuela ( Wood, 1976: 3).

HORIZON: ‘‘Upper member of Urumaco Formation’’ ( Wood, 1976: 3). See also Gaffney and Wood (2002: 4), Sánchez-Villagra and Aguilera (2008), as well as entire number of Paläontologische Zeitschrift 82 (2) for more recent information on Urumaco Formation and its fauna.

DIAGNOSIS: As for genus.

REFERRED MATERIAL: Specimens described in Wood (1976) from type locality: MCZ 4376, shell and associated elements ( Wood, 1976: pl. 1; Meylan et al., 2009: fig. 6, lower); MCNC 245, plastron and associated elements ( Wood, 1976: fig. 2); MCZ 4377, cervical ( Wood, 1976: fig. 3); MCZ 4378, humerus ( Wood, 1976: fig. 8).

Specimens from late Miocene of southwestern Amazonia described in Gaffney et al. (1998): LACM 131946, nuchal ( Gaffney et al., 1998: fig. 3); LACM 138028, right scapula ( Gaffney et al., 1998: fig. 4); LACM 137948, cervical.

Other specimens identified as Stupendemys but disputed by Meylan et al. (2009) are described in Bocquentin and Negri (1993), Lapparent de Broin et al. (1993), Bocquentin and Melo (2006).

PREVIOUS WORK: Bocquentin and Negri (1993), Lapparent de Broin et al. (1993), Gaffney et al. (1998), Bocquentin and Melo (2006), Scheyer and Sánchez-Villagra (2007), Meylan et al. (2009), and Riff et al. (2010). Sánchez-Villagra and Scheyer (2010) provide an overview of the genus and nice restoration.

TAXA NOMINA DUBIA

These are taxa that are invalid and not diagnosable for one reason or another.