Martín-Jiménez Marcos, Pérez-García Adán
Grupo de Biología Evolutiva, Facultad de Ciencias, UNED, Avda. Esparta s/n, 28232, Las Rozas, Madrid, Spain.
Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2025 Jun;308(6):1646-1658. doi: 10.1002/ar.25217. Epub 2023 Mar 28.
Neochelys is an exclusively European Eocene podocnemidid genus belonging to a linage that reached this continent at the early Eocene. The so far available anatomical information about it is relatively abundant, especially considering that of its shell, at least partially preserved for the eight valid species currently considered. By contrast, the skull of very few representatives of the taxon has been identified. Neochelys arenarum is one of the species for which the cranial anatomy is known. It corresponds to the oldest species of this genus, coming from the MP7 zone of the Ypresian (early Eocene) of Southern France. The 3D virtual cranial reconstruction and the detailed neuroanatomical study of a representative of Neochelys are carried out here for the first time based on that species, this being also the first study of this nature performed for a European podocnemidid. In addition, the comparison of the neuroanatomical structures (i.e., the endocranial and labyrinthic cavities, and the nervous and circulatory canals) of N. arenarum with those of other representatives of Podocnemidoidae has been achieved.
新龟属是一个仅分布于欧洲始新世的侧颈龟科属，属于一个在始新世早期抵达该大陆的谱系。到目前为止，关于它的解剖学信息相对丰富，尤其是考虑到其龟壳的信息，目前被认可的八个有效物种中至少有部分龟壳得以保存。相比之下，该分类单元中只有极少数代表的头骨被鉴定出来。纳氏新龟是已知颅部解剖结构的物种之一。它是该属最古老的物种，来自法国南部始新世早期伊普雷斯阶的MP7带。本文首次基于该物种对新龟属的一个代表进行了三维虚拟颅骨重建和详细的神经解剖学研究，这也是针对欧洲侧颈龟科进行的首次此类研究。此外，还将纳氏新龟的神经解剖结构（即颅内和迷路腔以及神经和循环管道）与其他侧颈龟科代表的结构进行了比较。
