A new species of baenid turtle from the Early Cretaceous Lakota Formation of South Dakota

Baenidae is a clade of paracryptodiran turtles known from the late Early Cretaceous to Eocene of North America. The proposed sister-group relationship of Baenidae to Pleurosternidae, a group of turtles known from sediments dated as early as the Late Jurassic, suggests a ghost lineage that crosses the early Early Cretaceous. We here document a new species of paracryptodiran turtle, Lakotemys australodakotensis gen. and sp. nov., from the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian to Valanginian) Lakota Formation of South Dakota based on a poorly preserved skull and two partial shells. Lakotemys australodakotensis is most readily distinguished from all other named Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous paracryptodires by having a broad, baenid-like skull with expanded triturating surfaces and a finely textured shell with a large suprapygal I that laterally contacts peripheral X and XI and an irregularly shaped vertebral V that does not lap onto neural VIII and that forms two anterolateral processes that partially separate the vertebral IV from contacting pleural IV. A phylogenetic analysis suggests that Lakotemys australodakotensis is a baenid, thereby partially closing the previously noted gap in the fossil record