Université de Fribourg

A Jurassic stem pleurodire sheds light on the functional origin of neck retraction in turtles

Anquetin, Jérémy ; Tong, Haiyan ; Claude, Julien

In: Scientific Reports, 2017, vol. 7, p. 42376

Modern turtles are composed of two monophyletic groups, notably diagnosed by divergent neck retraction mechanisms. Pleurodires (side-necked turtles) bend their neck sideways and protect their head under the anterior margin of the carapace. Cryptodires (hidden-necked turtles) withdraw their neck and head in the vertical plane between the shoulder girdles. These two mechanisms of neck...

Université de Fribourg

Estimating the phylogeny of geoemydid turtles (Cryptodira) from landmark data: an assessment of different methods

Ascarrunz​, Eduardo ; Claude, Julien ; Joyce, Walter G.

In: PeerJ, 2019, vol. 7, p. e7476

Background: In the last 20 years, a general picture of the evolutionary relationships between geoemydid turtles (ca. 70 species distributed over the Northern hemisphere) has emerged from the analysis of molecular data. However, there is a paucity of good traditional morphological characters that correlate with the phylogeny, which are essential for the robust integration of fossil and...