Podocnemis bramlyi, Fourteau, 1920

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 : 69

‘‘Podocnemis’ ’ bramlyi Fourteau, 1920

TYPE SPECIMEN: An unnumbered plastron with parts of right side of carapace attached ( Fourteau, 1920: fig. 23). According to Fourteau (1920: ix), the specimen is in the CGM collection, but it could not be found by one of us (R.C.W.) in the 1960s.

TYPE LOCALITY: Moghara Oasis, Egypt ( Fourteau, 1920).

HORIZON: Moghara Fm., early Miocene ( Fourteau, 1920; Miller, 1999).

DIAGNOSIS: Again, the only character for this taxon lies in the scale pattern of the anterior plastral lobe. In this case, the intergular scale separates the small, triangular gular scales and contacts and partly separates the humerals. The intergular is entirely on the entoplastron.

DISCUSSION: The scale pattern in bramlyi is common in South American podocnemidids (e.g., Peltocephalus , Podocnemis erythrocephala ) and led Williams (1954c) to suggest bramlyi as the ancestor of Peltocephalus . However, the scale pattern on the anterior lobe of podocnemidid shells is inadequate as the sole source of characters to determine phylogenetic relationships in this group due to intraspecific variability.

Another question, however, is whether or not bramlyi could be the shell for the skull-based Mogharemys , as they are from the same unit. There is no suggestion of physical association, although the locality data for both known specimens of bramlyi and Mogharemys is so inadequate that they could be from the same place. The only character present in bramlyi allies it with the magnatribe Eymnochelydand, which also includes Mogharemys , so it is possible. At present, however, bramlyi remains a nomen dubium.