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The Lord Howe
Island Horned Turtle,
Meiolania platyceps,
is probably the
best known member of the Meiolaniidae.
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It is difficult
to describe the uniqueness of turtles.
We all consider them reptiles, but technically, they may not be. See post What are Turtles? While only a few hundred species exists today, the number and diversity
of turtles was much greater. The very large (some may have exceeded 3 m) horned
turtles (family Meiolaniidae) are members of the Centrocryptodira (Eucryptodire)
clade that includes many extinct forms. They are thought to have been
herbivorous and were heavily armored with bony frills on their heads and
club-like tails. Fossils are distributed in time between the Eocene and the Pleistocene,
and the fossils are distributed in space in Australasia and South America,
suggesting they evolved prior to the breakup of Gondwana. Now it appears the
meiolaniid turtles survived into the Holocene and were eaten by humans.
Arthur W. White
at the University of New South Wales, and colleagues have now found remains of
meiolaniid turtles at the archeological site at Teouma on the island of Efate
in Vanuatu (in the Coral Sea). The meiolaniid turtles were found in cemetery
and midden layers that dated between 3100 and 2800 years before present (YBP). The
site is close to the coastal inlet of Teouma Bay, and on the eastern bank of a
stream fringed by mangrove. The people who lived at this site ate a variety of
domesticated animals as well as animals gathered from the environment. Among
the remains recovered were limb bones and shell fragments of a new species of meiolaniid
turte. The cut marks provide evidence that the turtles were butchered and the
lack of skulls and caudal vertebrae suggest the turtles were not prepared at
the site. The authors name the new species Meiolania
damelipi after Willy Damelip of Ambrym Island, Vanuatu . He was a local archaeologist
at the Teouma site. The authors consider its placement in the genus Meiolania tentative.
Literature
Gafany, E. S.
1996. The postcranial morphology of Meiolania
platyceps and a review of the Meiolaniidae. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, no. 229. 165
pp.
White, A. W., T. H. Worthy, S,
Hawkins, S. Bedford, and M. Spriggs. 2010. Megafaunal meiolaniid horned turtles
survived until early human settlement in Vanuatu, Southwest Pacific. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 107(35): 15512-15516.
Labels: fossil turtles, Holocene, Meiolaniidae, South Pacific, Vanuata