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Schematic drawing of dermal bones of chelonian carapace (left) and plastron (right), indicating approximate estimated position of described shell fragments of Chelonois marcanoi sp. nov. from Pedernales Province, Dominican Republic. Original position on either the left or right side of the carapace is uncertain for the two specimens indicated with asterisks.
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Insular giant tortoise diversity has been depleted by Late Quaternary extinctions, but the taxonomic status of many extinct populations remains poorly understood due to limited available fossil or subfossil material, hindering our ability to reconstruct Quaternary island biotas and environments. Giant tortoises are absent from current-day insular C...
Citations
... Angulate tortoises are primarily terrestrial and can inhabit a wide range of habitats and climatic zones [21,22], and they provide valuable information about ecosystem functions, such as seed dispersal and burrows [23,24]. Their remains are exclusively reported from archaeological or historical sites in South Africa [16,17] and it is likely that they were exploited by humans as a source of meat (chelonophagy sensu [25]) and for their shells [17,26]. In South Africa, their remains are primarily found as isolated shells and limb bones, as well as partial and articulated skeletons. ...
Here we examine the tibial microstructure of modern and fossil angulate tortoises to assess the histology and growth from the late Miocene–early Pliocene, Pleistocene through to modern forms. The cross-sections of all the tibiae sampled revealed highly vascularized, uninterrupted, fibrolamellar bone tissue during early ontogeny, which suggests that early growth was fast. However, later in ontogeny, growth was slower, as indicated by the deposition of parallel-fibred bone tissue in the outer cortex, and even ceased periodically, as indicated by lines of arrested growth. Comparative analyses of the growth rates of the tortoises from different time periods showed that the tortoises from the late Miocene–early Pliocene Langebaanweg locality and from Diepkloof Rock Shelter had relatively slower growth rates under less optimal growth conditions. Additionally, these prehistoric specimens show extensive remodelling, and several generations of secondary osteons further suggest functional and/or metabolic stresses on the skeleton. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions suggest that it was mostly cooler and drier with seasonal fluctuations in late Miocene–early Pliocene, and it is likely that Chersina responded to these conditions by having a lower rate of growth as compared with their modern counterparts, which thrive in the current prevailing more favourable Mediterranean type of climate.
... Las tortugas terrestres del género Chelonoidis tuvieron una amplia distribución en el Caribe insular y las Bahamas durante el Pleistoceno tardío y el Holoceno. Dos especies de este género, C. marcanoi Turvey et al., 2017y C. dominicensis Albury et al., 2018 fueron recientemente descritas a partir de elementos colectados en depósitos en el suroeste y este de República Dominicana respectivamente. Aquí revisamos el estatus taxonómico de las especies de Chelonoidis en La Española a partir de elementos previamente descritos y de otros recientemente colectados. ...
... Fossils of Chelonoidis have been found in the multiple island banks in the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the islands Hispaniola, Navassa Island, Cuba, Mona, Sombrero, Anguilla, and Barbados. Hitherto, six species of large and medium-size tortoises have been named: Chelonoidis cubensis (Leidy, 1868) from multiple localities in Cuba, C. sombrerensis (Leidy, 1868) from Sombrero Island, C. monensis (Williams, 1952) from Mona Island, C. alburyorum Franz and Franz, 2009 from Abaco in the Bahamas, with two subspecies in Turks and Caicos C. a. keegani and C. a. sementis , and C. marcanoi Turvey, 2017 andC. dominicensis Albury et al., 2018 from Hispaniola. ...
... In Hispaniola, fossils of Chelonoidis were first described by Franz and Woods (1983), but it was not until 2017, after the discovery of new isolated elements from the southwest Dominican Republic, that a new species was described, C. marcanoi (Turvey et al., 2017). However, Vlachos (2018) and Albury et al. (2018) considered C. marcanoi a nomen dubium because the holotype of the species, a humerus ( Fig. 2), is not a diagnostic element to distinguish among species of the genus. ...
The genus of land tortoises Chelonoidis had a wide distribution across the Caribbean and Bahamian Archipelago during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Two extinct species of this genus, C. marcanoi Turvey et al., 2017 and C. dominicensis Albury et al., 2018 were recently described from fossils collected in deposits in the southwest and east of the Dominican Republic respectively. Here we review the taxonomic status of Chelonoidis species from Hispaniola based on previously described remains along with new specimens recently collected. More diagnostic elements collected from cave deposits in the southwest Dominican Republic indicate that C. marcanoi is a senior synonym of C. dominicensis. This species was distributed across the south of eastern Hispaniola, including the Northern and Southeast Paleo-island. The new collection of fossils from the Pedernales rigion also includes associated elements of an undescribed species, Chelonoidis gersoni sp. nov., closely related to C. cubensis and C. marcanoi. The triangular-shaped gular projection of the epiplastron of this new species of Chelonoidis is unique among tortoises of this genus.
... The genus Trachemys still occurs in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas archipelago, where these turtles might have been transported between islands by Indigenous populations [120]. Several now-extinct tortoise species of the genus Chelonoidis have been described in the Greater Antilles [63,[121][122][123]. Available data from Cuba suggests the extinction of tortoises to be coincident with the arrival of the first human groups [124], however, I found no published evidence for the occurrence of Chelonoidis in an unambiguous archaeological context. ...
Although the importance of the archaeological record for addressing questions of biodiversity is gaining ground, its relevance for describing past faunal communities is still
under-exploited, particularly for the most under-documented areas and species. Among the most poorly documented taxa are reptiles and amphibians, which are rarely studied in detail in the archaeological record, even in tropical areas where most of these species occur today. Here I evaluate the archaeological and paleontological significance of reptiles and amphibians from the Indigenous archaeological record of the insular Caribbean. Quantitative (bone counts) and qualitative (taxonomic identification) analyses allow researchers to discuss the role of herpetofauna in the subsistence strategies
of Indigenous populations as well as their interest for assessing past insular biodiversity. This overview sheds light on both the poor representation of herpetofaunal taxa in Caribbean archaeological deposits and trends in the potential exploitation of reptiles and amphibians by Indigenous populations. In terms of paleoecology, the presented results
reveal strong regional differences in the quality and density of data as well as the inadequacy of available archaeofaunal data for addressing questions of past biodiversity.
... The femur alone, in its distinctiveness, does not allow firm assessment of the phylogenetic relationship with respect to any potentially related taxon (Centrochelys, Stigmochelys, Testudo and Titanochelon). It is noteworthy that the establishment of new fossil taxa on the basis of appendicular elements is not rare among testudinids, and has been used, besides most other insular taxa mentioned already, for the recently described species Chelonoidis marcanoi Turvey et al., 2017 from the Quaternary of Hispaniola (Turvey et al., 2017). ...
... The femur alone, in its distinctiveness, does not allow firm assessment of the phylogenetic relationship with respect to any potentially related taxon (Centrochelys, Stigmochelys, Testudo and Titanochelon). It is noteworthy that the establishment of new fossil taxa on the basis of appendicular elements is not rare among testudinids, and has been used, besides most other insular taxa mentioned already, for the recently described species Chelonoidis marcanoi Turvey et al., 2017 from the Quaternary of Hispaniola (Turvey et al., 2017). ...
Archaeological investigations carried out in the cave Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro, Bagheria, Sicily, revealed the presence of a few skeletal elements of a large-sized tortoise in a funerary area dating to the Copper/Bronze Age. The tortoise has been AMS-dated revealing an age of 12.5 ± 0.5 kyr BP and therefore it pre-dates the funerary activities. The morphology of the retrieved skeletal elements differs from that of the only native tortoise currently living in Sicily, Testudo hermanni. The tortoise's size significantly exceeds the size range of extant Te. hermanni and all Testudo spp., as well as that of their known fossils, and suggests a shell length of 50-60 cm. Repeated efforts to obtain DNA sequences from the tortoise of Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro failed, but the morphology of the femur is distinct enough to allow us to erect a new taxon, Solitudo sicula gen. et sp. nov., based on a parsimony analysis. It belongs to a hitherto unrecognized clade that includes other large-sized tortoises from Mediterranean islands, like Malta and Menorca. A review of the pertinent taxa indicates that the remains here described represent the geologically youngest large-sized tortoise of the Mediterranean area.
... Although the distal articular surface of the specimen is not perfectly preserved, the articular facets are clearly visible. Morphological features of specimen AMU-CURS-584 coincide with those observed in femora of extinct (e.g., Turvey et al. 2017) and extant Chelonoidis (e.g., Chelonoidis carbonarius and Chelonoidis denticulatus). General description, comparisons and remarks: The specimen AMU-CURS-571 constitutes a cervical vertebra ( Fig. 15C1-C5), resembling in length, height, and morphology cervical 3 of the extant Podocnemis expansa (AMNH 62947). ...
The Pliocene–Pleistocene transition in the Neotropics is poorly understood despite the major climatic changes that occurred at the onset of the Quaternary. The San Gregorio Formation, the younger unit of the Urumaco Sequence, preserves a fauna that documents this critical transition. We report stingrays, freshwater bony fishes, amphibians, crocodiles, lizards, snakes, aquatic and terrestrial turtles, and mammals. A total of 49 taxa are reported from the Vergel Member (late Pliocene) and nine taxa from the Cocuiza Member (Early Pleistocene), with 28 and 18 taxa reported for the first time in the Urumaco sequence and Venezuela, respectively. Our findings include the first fossil record of the freshwater fishes Megaleporinus, Schizodon, Amblydoras, Scorpiodoras, and the pipesnake Anilius scytale, all from Pliocene strata. The late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene ages proposed here for the Vergel and Cocuiza members, respectively, are supported by their stratigraphic position, palynology, nannoplankton, and 86Sr/88Sr dating. Mammals from the Vergel Member are associated with the first major pulse of the Great American Biotic Interchange. In contrast to the dry conditions prevailing today, the San Gregorio Formation documents mixed open grassland/forest areas surrounding permanent freshwater systems, following the isolation of the northern South American basin from western Amazonia. These findings support the hypothesis that range contraction of many taxa to their current distribution in northern South America occurred rapidly during at least the last 1.5 million years.
... However, they also suggested the possibility of dispersal by Pleistocene megafauna, such as the Cuban ground sloth, Megalocnus rodens Leidy, although they found little support for that idea. Another potential disperser during Pleistocene times could have been large tortoises (Chelinoidis) that once were found throughout Cuba, Hispaniola (including Navassa Island), Puerto Rico (Mona Island), as well as in the Bahamas (Williams, 1952;Auffenberg, 1967;Olson et al., 1982;Franz and Woods, 1983;Franz and Franz, 2009;Turvey et al., 2017), most likely in open, dry habitats (Turvey et al., 2017). These giant tortoises have been considered ecosystem engineers, and modern insular species are known to interact with large cacti in the Galapagos Islands (e.g., Gibbs et al., 2010), so these species may have been key in aiding dispersal of cacti. ...
... However, they also suggested the possibility of dispersal by Pleistocene megafauna, such as the Cuban ground sloth, Megalocnus rodens Leidy, although they found little support for that idea. Another potential disperser during Pleistocene times could have been large tortoises (Chelinoidis) that once were found throughout Cuba, Hispaniola (including Navassa Island), Puerto Rico (Mona Island), as well as in the Bahamas (Williams, 1952;Auffenberg, 1967;Olson et al., 1982;Franz and Woods, 1983;Franz and Franz, 2009;Turvey et al., 2017), most likely in open, dry habitats (Turvey et al., 2017). These giant tortoises have been considered ecosystem engineers, and modern insular species are known to interact with large cacti in the Galapagos Islands (e.g., Gibbs et al., 2010), so these species may have been key in aiding dispersal of cacti. ...
... Island gigantism is well recorded in numerous plant and animal species across island systems worldwide (Lomolino, 2005;Jaffe et al., 2011;Cox and Burns, 2017;Biddick et al., 2019), and this pattern is present in some animals and plants of the Greater Antilles as well (Cooke et al., 2011;Turvey et al., 2017), including in the Cactaceae (e.g., Leptocereus s.l.; Barrios et al., 2020). Giant tortoises (Chelinoidis, see above) with carapace lengths of up to 60 cm long, thus comparable to the giant Galapagos tortoises, once roamed numerous Caribbean Islands (Turvey et al., 2017), and considerably large, New World monkeys, at least as compared to their continental relatives, inhabited Hispaniola (Cooke et al., 2011). ...
Premise:
The Caribbean islands are in the top five biodiversity hotspots on the planet; however, the biogeographic history of the seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF) there is poorly studied. Consolea consists of nine species of dioecious, hummingbird-pollinated tree cacti endemic to the West Indies, which form a conspicuous element of the SDTF. Several species are threatened by anthropogenic disturbance, disease, sea-level rise, and invasive species and are of conservation concern. However, no comprehensive phylogeny yet exists for the clade.
Methods:
We reconstructed the phylogeny of Consolea, sampling all species using plastomic data to determine relationships, understand the evolution of key morphological characters, and test their biogeographic history. We estimated divergence times to determine the role climate change may have played in shaping the current diversity of the clade.
Results:
Consolea appears to have evolved very recently during the latter part of the Pleistocene on Cuba/Hispaniola likely from a South American ancestor and, from there, moved into the Bahamas, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Lesser Antilles. The tree growth form is a synapomorphy of Consolea and likely aided in the establishment and diversification of the clade.
Conclusions:
Pleistocene aridification associated with glaciation likely played a role in shaping the current diversity of Consolea, and insular gigantism may have been a key innovation leading to the success of these species to invade the often-dense SDTF. This in-situ Caribbean radiation provides a window into the generation of species diversity and the complexity of the SDTF community within the Antilles.
... The first record of large tortoises in Dominican Republic was documented based on shell fragments and limb elements collected at a cave near Bayaguana in San Cristobal Province, in the Los Haitises region, and referred to Geochelone (Franz and Woods, 1983). Chelonoidis marcanoi was described based on several remains, making up at least seven individuals from Quaternary sediments at several cave sites in Pedernales Province, southern Dominican Republic (Turvey et al., 2017). Also, Chelonoidis dominicensis, was described based on one specimen that conserved the skull, the shell nearly complete, and appendicular skeleton recovered from the Oleg's Bat Cave in La Altagracia Province, southeastern Dominican Republic (Albury et al., 2018). ...
Testudines is the crown-group that includes all living forms of turtles and their closest relatives. This group is known from the late Triassic and persists to this day. The fossil record of Testudines in Mexico is scarce and has been previously compiled in several papers. Here we present an update including all osteological and ichnological records from México and Central America. In Mexico, the Testudines fossil record extends from the Late Triassic to the Pleistocene, being widely abundant during the Pleistocene. Kinosternon and Gopherus are the best represented taxa, known from the late Miocene (Hemphillian) to the late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean). Fossil turtles are well represented in Mexico, excluding the states of Campeche, Mexico City, Colima, Guerrero, Queretaro, Quintana Roo and Sinaloa. On the contrary, the ichnological records are only known in Coahuila, Puebla and Zacatecas. In Central America there are records of fossil turtles in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama, the latter being the country holding most records. Finally, nine new species have been described in the region, six for Mexico (Notoemys tlaxiacoensis, Yelmochelys rosarioae, Mexichelys coahuilaensis, Gopherus donlaloi, G. auffenbergi and G. pargensis, of which G. auffenbergi is synonymous with G. berlandieri and G. pargensis is considered a nomen vanum) and three in Central America (Rhinoclemmys nicoyama from Costa Rica, and Rhinoclemmys panamaensis and Staurotypus moschus from Panama).
... Entre las especies que han desparecido se encuentran algunas de gran tamaño, tales como: la lechuza gigante de las Bahamas (Tyto pollens), de unos 90 cm de longitud corporal; el gavilán gigante de Cuba, Bahamas y La Española (Titanohierax gloveralleni), de grandes garras y talla similar a un águila actual; así como la tortuga gigante de Bahamas (Chelonoidis alburyorum), con una longitud total del caparazón de unos 50 cm; según Kehlmaier et al. (2017) se encuentra logenéticamente próxima a las tortugas de las Galápagos. Cabe subrayar que fósiles del Cuaternario de especies de quelónidos gigantes también se han encontrado en isla Sombrero (Antillas Menores), Cuba y La Española (Turvey et al., 2017b). Otras extinciones de vertebrados en el territorio bahameño incluyen una gallineta no voladora (Rallus cyanocavi), el cocodrilo cubano (Crocodylus rhombifer); una rapaz predominantemente carroñera, la caraira o carancho (Caracara creightoni) y un cuervo (Corvus palmarum), que aún sobrevive en Cuba y en La Española. ...
... However, many of our arguments are directly applicable to rewilding with Galapagos giant tortoises, too. While these tortoises have so far only been used for rewilding within the Galapagos Archipelago [8], they hold great promise for applications on, for example, many Caribbean islands that harboured endemic giant tortoises until humans arrived [6], including several species that were closely related to the Galapagos giants [9,10]. Lastly, the proposed use of large and giant tortoises as non-native conservation megaherbivores on islands without a history of native tortoises [11] could also be modified according to our arguments here. ...
Replacing recently extinct endemic giant tortoises with extant, functional analogues provide the perhaps best examples of island rewilding to date. Yet, an efficient future application of this conservation action is challenging in an era of climate change. We here present and discuss a conceptual frame- work that can serve as a roadmap for the study and application of tortoise rewilding in an uncertain future. We focus on three main ecological func- tions mediated by giant tortoises, namely herbivory, seed dispersal and nutrient cycling, and discuss how climate change is likely to impact these. We then propose and discuss mitigation strategies such as artificial constructed shade sites and water holes that can help drive and maintain the ecosystem functions provided by the tortoises on a landscape scale. The application of the framework and the mitigation strategies are illustrated with examples from both wild and rewilded populations of the Aldabra giant tortoise, Aldabrachelys gigantea, in the Western Indian Ocean.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Trophic rewilding: consequences for ecosystems under global change’. Accessible at: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/373/1761
... See tables 1 and 2 for lists of shell and skull measurements. We also examined and compared the tortoise shell fragments and postcranial bones from the Marcano collection reported by Franz and Woods (1983), the Turks and Caicos Islands specimens (Franz et al., 2000) and compared them with the description and images of C. marcanoi (Turvey et al., 2017), C. cubensis (Leidy, 1868) (see images in Williams, 1950), C. sombrerensis (Leidy, 1886), and C. monensis (Williams, 1952). General morphological assessments for South American relatives are available in Franz and Franz (2009). ...
... Chelonoidis marcanoi Sample: A recent description of a giant tortoise, Chelonoidis marcanoi, from the Dominican Republic, by Turvey et al. (2017), was based on fragmentary limb bones (6 humeri, 2 femora) and 4 shell fragments (3 epiplastra with evidence of gular scutes, 1 partial hyoplastron or hypoplastron). Their sample represented at least seven individuals from five caves in Pedernales Province, in the southwestern part of the country. ...
... Since the description of the Pedernales tortoise is based primarily on limb elements, we prepared table 3, which compares the humeri and femora in the type series of Chelonoidis marcanoi with the limb bones from the Bayaguana tortoise, C. dominicensis, and C. alburyorum. The information in this table was extracted from the diagnosis and descriptions presented by Turvey et al. (2017), Franz and Franz (2009), and our direct observations of C. alburyorum, C. dominicensis, and the Bayaguana tortoise. The obvious conclusion is that all of these limb elements are very similar, except for slight differences in the total length, shape and depth of the muscle scars, and degree of openness of the shaft groove of the humeri, widths of the distal and proximal articulations, and shape and size of muscle scars of the femora. ...
