THE OTTAWA NATURALIST 



Vol. XXVII. August -September, 1913 Nos. 5-6 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF TESTUDO, AND 



OF A REMARKABLE SPECIMEN OF STYLEMYS 



NEBRASCENSIS, FROM THE OLIGOCENE OF 



WYOMING. U.S.A.* 



By Lawrence M. Lambe, F.G.S., F.R.S.C, 



Vertebrate Palaeontologist, Geological 



Survey, Ottawa. Canada. 



The specimen of Testudo to be described below is one of a 

 small collection of turtles from the Oligocene of Wyoming, 

 U.S.A.. lately acquired by the Geological Survey, Canada. The 

 collection, consisting altogether of ten well preserved specimens, 

 was made by Charles H. Sternberg and C. M. Sternberg, in 1911, 

 at Seaman's old ranch, Sage creek, a branch of Old Woman 

 creek. Niobrara county (formerly included in Converse county), 

 "Wyoming. The majority of these specimens, with the exception 

 of the one regarded as representing an undescribed species of 

 Testudo. are for the present referred to Stylemys uchrascensis, 

 Leidy. 



The principal character distinguishing this Testudo from 

 other species of the genus is the great development of the 

 epiplastral lip which forms a very conspicuous feature of the 

 plastron. 



Of the known species of Testudo which shew a decided 

 enlargement of the epiplastral lip. T. thomsoni, Hav, from 

 Oligocene deposits in South Dakota, U.S.A., approaches most 

 closely to the Sage creek form. T. thomsoni was described 

 by Dr. O. P. Hay, in 1908, in his monumental work on North 

 American turtles' from "the skull, the greater portion of the 

 anterior lobe of the plastron, some cervical vertebrae, and parts 

 of the left foreleg" .... "obtained in 1904, by Mr. Albert 

 Thompson, of the the American Museum of Natural History, 



Communicated with the permission of the Director of the Geological 

 Survey, Canada. 



'The Fossil Turtles of North America, by Oliver Perry Hay, Washington, 

 DC. Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1908. 



