nanhsiungchelyidae – Nix Illustration

Jiangxichelys neimongolensis was a terrestrial turtle that was part of an extinct group known as nanhsiungchelyids, whose closest living relatives today are the aquatic softshell turtles.

(This species was previously known as “Zangerlia” neimongolensis, but has since been moved into the genus Jiangxichelys instead.)

It lived towards the end of the Cretaceous, about 75-71 million years ago, in what is now the Gobi Desert – which at the time was more of a semi-arid climate with both rivers and sand dunes.

Its 60cm long (~2′) carapace had a long wide shape that made it appear rather flattened from the front, but not to quite as much an extreme as its larger American cousin Basilemys.

Several fairly well-preserved specimens have been found that appear to have been buried alive, probably either engulfed by sudden sandstorms or trapped in collapsing burrows. This has preserved some anatomical details previously unknown in nanhsiungchelyids, such as the pattern of scales on top of the head and the presence of large bony osteoderms on the underside of the front toes, which may have aided with traction on loose sandy ground.

Anomalochelys angulata, a terrestrial turtle from the mid-Cretaceous of Hokkaido, Japan (~100-94 mya).

Measuring around 60cm long (2′), it had a pair of large forward-facing horn-like spikes at the front of its shell – the function of which isn’t clear, but they may have been useful for defense if it was incapable of fully retracting its head into its shell.

It was part of a family of turtles from Asia and North America known as nanhsiungchelyids, a group that adapted to live fully on land and ended up convergently closely resembling modern tortoises. Other members of this group included the larger Nanhsiungchelys (which was also recently found to have possessed “horns” on its shell!) and the very flat Basilemys.

They were also a rare example of a turtle family that didn’t survive through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, with no known remains from the Cenozoic.