840
Journal of Paleontology 89(5):821–844
Figure 9. Phylogenetic hypotheses of fossil and Recent Kinosternidae based on morphological evidence only. (1) Strict consensus cladogram; and (2) 50% majority rule consensus cladogram of 15 most parsimonious trees. Numbers at nodes in (1) indicate bootstrap support values, and numbers in (2) indicate frequency of occurrence. Dagger symbol indicates extinct taxa.
Kinosternon leucostomum (Iverson, 1991, 1998; Iverson et al., 2007, 2013; Spinks et al., 2014). The genus Cryptochelys Iverson, Le, and Ingram 2013, is recovered as polyphyletic, but supported in part because K. leucostomum (the type species of Cryptochelys), Kinosternon creaseri, and Kinosternon acutum are recovered as monophyletic. However, other species included in that genus (K. herrerai, K. angustipons, and K. dunni) are distributed throughout the cladogram. Kinosternon sonoriense sonoriense and Kinosternon sonoriense longifemorale are paraphyletic. Sternotherus palaeodorus is placed in a polytomy with extant Sternotherus and Kinosternon in the strict consensus and a stem taxon of Sternotherus in the 50% majority rule consensus, suggesting that a new generic name may be appropriate for that taxon pending further analyses.
Discussion
The early Neogene fossil record of kinosternids is limited, but it is evident that Kinosternon underwent moderately rapid speciation during the middle to late Miocene of North America, exemplified by the taxa Kinosternon skullridgescens, Kinosternon pojoaque, Kinosternon rincon, Kinosternon wakeeniense, Kinosternon pannekollops, and Kinosternon notolophus. Divergent speciation occurred relatively soon after the first appearance of Kinosternon in the early Miocene (Hemingfordian NALMA), and at least two extant clades
diverged from other Kinosternon by the middle to early late Miocene. These include the flavescens group (Platythyra) that diverged by the late Barstovian, and the subrubrum group (Thyrosternum) that diverged sometime in the Clarendonian (see Discussion below). Representative fossils of modern species first occur relatively late at the Miocene–Pliocene boundary, 6–5Ma (Fig. 10), and subsequent records up to the Holocene appear to represent only extant taxa (Ernst and Lovich, 2009). Kinosternon today exemplifies a highly speciose taxon contrasted to the little known fossil record. Extant Kinosternon have their greatest species diversity in Mexico and Mesoamerica (Legler and Vogt, 2013), but have diversified throughout their range in North America and South America into almost every fresh to brackish wetland habitat available in biomes that range from desert to tropical rainforest (Ernst and
Barbour, 1989; Ernst and Lovich, 2009). In the Miocene, at least five of the fossil species were associated with warm arid to semi-arid open habitat paleoenvironments, and these habitats may be where Kinosternon first evolved. The paleoenviron- ments occupied by K. skullridgescens, K. pojoaque, and K. rincon were likely water bodies in temperate xerophytic shrubland in the southwestern United States (Pound et al., 2011; Pound et al., 2012). Kinosternon pannekollops and K. wakee- niense were more likely savanna associated wetland species in the central and southeastern United States (Webb, 1977; Schultz, 1977, 1990; Pound et al., 2011, 2012), and
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212