Rosasia

Rosasia is an extinct genus of bothremydid pleurodiran turtle that was discovered in the Argilas de Aveiro Formation of Portugal.^[1] The genus consists of a single species, R. soutoi,^[1] named after Alberto Souto.^[2]

Rosasia Temporal range: Campanian–Maastrichtian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Testudines
Suborder:	Pleurodira
Family:	†Bothremydidae
Subfamily:	†Bothremydinae
Tribe:	†Bothremydini
Subtribe:	†Bothremydina
Genus:	†Rosasia Carrington da Costa, 1940
Species:	†R. sotoui
Binomial name
†Rosasia sotoui Carrington da Costa, 1940

Description

Rosasia is distinguished by a skull with a moderately obtuse V-shape, less so than in Bothremys cooki. The orbits are less reduced than Bothremys, though the external nostril is unusually narrow for the group. The maxillae are greatly enlarged, and there is a strong ventral expansion of the quadratojugal. The first vertebra of the carapace largelyu covers the entire nuchal, as in Bothremys parva. The vertebrae themselves are relatively narrow.^[3]

Taxonomy

In a provisional phylogeny, Antunes & Broin (1988) classified Rosasia as the sister genus to Bothremys. A 2016 paper by Carvalho et al recovered Rosasia sotoui as the sister taxon of the newly described Inaechelys pernambucensis;^[4] a few months later, another paper synonymized the two genera, with Rosasia taking precedent.^[5]

References

1. "North Gondwana Pleurodiran Turtles". Origin, Evolution and Biogeographic History of South American Turtles. Springer Earth System Sciences. 2014. pp. 95–131. ISBN 978-3-319-00518-8.
2. "De Rerum Natura" (in Portuguese). Retrieved January 15, 2021. Entre os fósseis daqui retirados destaca-se a carapaça de uma tartaruga, até então desconhecida, descrita em 1940 pelo Prof. Carrington da Costa, da Universidade do Porto, como espécie nova para a ciência, a que deu o nome de Rosacea [sic.] soutoi, em homenagem ao seu achador, Alberto Souto, um aveirense curioso das coisas da natureza, um exemplo que não tem encontrado seguidores. (Among the fossils taken from here, the carapace of a tortoise, previously unknown, described in 1940 by Prof. Carrington da Costa, from the University of Porto, as a new species for science, which he named Rosasia soutoi, in honor of its finder, Alberto Souto, an Aveirense curious about the things of nature, an example that has not found followers.)
3. Antunes, M. T.; Broin, F. de (1988). "Le Crétacé terminal de Beira Litoral, Portugal: remarques stratigraphiques et écologiques, étude complémentaire de Rosasia soutoi (Chelonii, Bothremydidae)". Ciências da Terra / Earth Sciences Journal. 9. ISSN 2183-4431.
4. Carvalho, Anny Rafaela De Araújo; Ghilardi, Aline Marcele; Barreto, Alcina Magnólia Franca (2016-06-21). "A new side-neck turtle (Pelomedusoides: Bothremydidae) from the Early Paleocene (Danian) Maria Farinha Formation, Paraíba Basin, Brazil". Zootaxa. 4126 (4): 491–513. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4126.4.3. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 27395602.
5. Romano, Pedro S. R. (2016-11-29). "The tale of the headless turtle". Zootaxa. 4200 (2): 327–330. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4200.2.7. ISSN 1175-5334. S2CID 24993976.