Analysis of the Iberian Aragonian record of Paleotestudo, and refutation of the validity of the Spanish ‘Testudo catalaunica’ and the French ‘Paleotestudo canetotiana’

Abstract

Information about the small Testudinidae taxon or taxa (i.e. with a length less than 30 cm) recorded in the Aragonian of the Iberian Peninsula was, until now, very limited. The references to ‘Paleotestudo catalaunica’ were regarded as possibly the only valid systematic identifications. That species corresponds to a tortoise defined in the Aragonian of Spain (Sant Quirze del Vallès, Barcelona). New material of tortoises, from several Spanish Aragonian regions, is analyzed here. The specimens from the type locality of ‘Paleotestudo catalaunica’ and from other Spanish sites, as well as those from two other European late Aragonian sites (Sansan in France and Hohenhöwen in Germany, where two taxa represented by several specimens were described) are reviewed here. This study refutes the validity of the taxa described in Sant Quirze del Vallès and in Sansan, being recognized as junior synonyms of the German Paleotestudo antiqua. This species is the only one recognized in the Aragonian of Spain