↓ Skip to main content

A toothed turtle from the Late Jurassic of China and the global biogeographic history of turtles

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, October 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
8 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
twitter
25 X users
facebook
8 Facebook pages
wikipedia
7 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
77 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
59 Mendeley
citeulike
1 CiteULike
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
A toothed turtle from the Late Jurassic of China and the global biogeographic history of turtles
Published in
BMC Ecology and Evolution, October 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12862-016-0762-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Walter G. Joyce, Márton Rabi, James M. Clark, Xing Xu

Abstract

Turtles (Testudinata) are a successful lineage of vertebrates with about 350 extant species that inhabit all major oceans and landmasses with tropical to temperate climates. The rich fossil record of turtles documents the adaptation of various sub-lineages to a broad range of habitat preferences, but a synthetic biogeographic model is still lacking for the group. We herein describe a new species of fossil turtle from the Late Jurassic of Xinjiang, China, Sichuanchelys palatodentata sp. nov., that is highly unusual by plesiomorphically exhibiting palatal teeth. Phylogenetic analysis places the Late Jurassic Sichuanchelys palatodentata in a clade with the Late Cretaceous Mongolochelys efremovi outside crown group Testudines thereby establishing the prolonged presence of a previously unrecognized clade of turtles in Asia, herein named Sichuanchelyidae. In contrast to previous hypotheses, M. efremovi and Kallokibotion bajazidi are not found within Meiolaniformes, a clade that is here reinterpreted as being restricted to Gondwana. A revision of the global distribution of fossil and recent turtle reveals that the three primary lineages of derived, aquatic turtles, including the crown, Paracryptodira, Pan-Pleurodira, and Pan-Cryptodira can be traced back to the Middle Jurassic of Euramerica, Gondwana, and Asia, respectively, which resulted from the primary break up of Pangaea at that time. The two primary lineages of Pleurodira, Pan-Pelomedusoides and Pan-Chelidae, can similarly be traced back to the Cretaceous of northern and southern Gondwana, respectively, which were separated from one another by a large desert zone during that time. The primary divergence of crown turtles was therefore driven by vicariance to the primary freshwater aquatic habitat of these lineages. The temporally persistent lineages of basal turtles, Helochelydridae, Meiolaniformes, Sichuanchelyidae, can similarly be traced back to the Late Mesozoic of Euramerica, southern Gondwana, and Asia. Given the ambiguous phylogenetic relationships of these three lineages, it is unclear if their diversification was driven by vicariance as well, or if they display a vicariance-like pattern. The clean, primary signal apparent among early turtles is secondarily obliterated throughout the Late Cretaceous to Recent by extensive dispersal of continental turtles and by multiple invasions of marine habitats.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 25 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 59 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Brazil 1 2%
Unknown 58 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 12 20%
Student > Bachelor 9 15%
Researcher 7 12%
Student > Master 5 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 3 5%
Other 9 15%
Unknown 14 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 17 29%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 16 27%
Environmental Science 5 8%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 3 5%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 1 2%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 17 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 102. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 December 2023.
All research outputs
#417,077
of 25,463,724 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#91
of 3,714 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,084
of 320,872 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#5
of 90 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,463,724 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,714 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 320,872 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 90 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.