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Adocus

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Adocus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous - Oligocene, 125–28 Ma
Shell of Adocus beatus, Peabody Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Suborder: Cryptodira
Family: Adocidae
Subfamily: Adocinae
Genus: Adocus
Cope, 1868
Type species
Adocus beatus
Leidy, 1865
Species

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Adocus is an extinct genus of aquatic turtles belonging to the family Adocidae.

Skull and shell of Glyptops ornatus, and shell of Adocus beatus

Description

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Species of the genus Adocus had flattened and smoothly contoured shells with horny sculptured plates. The shells could reach a length of at least 50 centimetres (1.6 ft) for North American species, some species like A. kohaku had carapace length of 60 centimetres (2.0 ft).[1] The largest species, A. kirtlandius had carapace reaching 113 centimetres (3.71 ft).[2] These large freshwater turtles had an omnivorous diet. They lived from the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene in North America, but in Asia, they were also present during the Oligocene.

Distribution

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These turtles have been found in Cretaceous to Paleogene of Canada, United States, Mongolia, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Species

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References

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  1. ^ Hirayama*, Ren; Sonoda, Teppei; Uno, Hikaru; Horie, Kenji; Tsutsumi, Yukiyasu; Sasaki, Kazuhisa; Takisawa, Shunsuke Mitsuzuka and Toshio (2022-03-14). "Adocus Kohaku, A New Species of Aquatic Turtle (Testudines: Cryptodira: Adocidae) from the Late Cretaceous of Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, Northeast Japan, with Special References to the Geological Age of the Tamagawa Formation (Kuji Group) LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:61376EEE-A386-416E-98AE-FF64FE2597A2". International Journal of Paleobiology & Paleontology. 4 (1).
  2. ^ Farina, Bruna M.; Godoy, Pedro L.; Benson, Roger B. J.; Langer, Max C.; Ferreira, Gabriel S. (2023). "Turtle body size evolution is determined by lineage-specific specializations rather than global trends". Ecology and Evolution. 13 (6): e10201. Bibcode:2023EcoEv..1310201F. doi:10.1002/ece3.10201. ISSN 2045-7758. PMC 10293707. PMID 37384241.