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A new Cretaceous chelid turtle from the northern Neuquén Basin, Argentina

Marcelo S. DE LA FUENTE, Jorge O. CALVO and Bernardo J. GONZÁLEZ RIGA

Locality and age. The turtle was recovered in mudstones and fine sandstones that crop out at Loma del Lindero site, 10 km West to Rincón de los Sauces City, Neuquén Province, Patagonia, Argentina. These rocks belong to the Río Neuquén Subgroup, Neuquén Group, Late Cretaceous late Turonian-Coniacian.

Linderochelys rinconensis gen nov et sp. is a shortnecked chelid characterized by an elongated abdominal seam. It differs clearly from the South American extant species assigned to Phrynops (sensu lato) in the presence of cuneiform mesoplastra crossed by an pectoral-abdominal sulcus. Likewise, this new taxa also differs from the hitherto known Upper Cretaceous chelids referred to the Phrynops group by several characters (Lapparent de Broin and de la Fuente, 2001). Differs from ''Palaeophrynops patagonicus'' from the Los Alamitos Formation (Late Campanian-Early Maastrichtian) in the bell shape of entoplastron, and the more depressed common process of postzygapophyses. Differs from the Bajo Barreal Formation (Turonian-Campanian) turtle Bonapartemys bajobarrealis in having a short plastral bridge, absence of ridges at the bridge limit of anterior plastral lobe, and in the different plastral scale formulae, and also differs from the Portezuelo Formation (Late Turonian-Early Coniacian) turtle Prochelidella portezuelae and the Cenomanian Prochelidella spp. (Lapparent de Broin et al., 1997) in having a large and rounded anterior plastral lobe and in the length of interadominal seam.