29 



CHELONURA TEMMINCKIL— T^oos/. 



Plate IV. 



Characters. Head enormously large, triangular, broad behind, pointed before, 

 covered above and on the sides with plates; upper jaw strong, '•'• vuliuriform^'' 

 hooked in front, cutting margin waving; lower jaw with a strong tooth in front, 

 received in a fossette of the upper; shell tricarinate, subround, considerably 

 concave in front, deeply emarginate and dentate behind; marginal plates thirty- 

 one, placed in two rows at the flanks; tail without a crest. 



Synonymes. Chelonura Temminckii, Troost, manuscript. 



Description. The shell is subquadrangular, with its angles rounded, consi- 

 derably concave anteriorly over the neck, and deeply emarginate and dentate 

 posteriorly. Of the vertebral plates, the anterior is subtrapezoidal, a little rounded 

 in front and convex behind, with a prominent tubercle above, which commences 

 the vertebral carina; the second is hexagonal, concave in front, carinated, and 

 with a tubercle at the centre of the posterior margin; the third is quadrilateral, 

 with a similar tubercle, but higher; the fourth is shaped like the third, but with a 

 notch behind; the fifth vertebral plate is subpentagonal, narrower above and 

 broader below, with its anterior border projecting into the posterior margin of 

 the fourth, and is surmounted with the highest tubercle; these prominences make 

 an elevated and tuberculated vertebral carina. The anterior lateral plate is 

 subtriangular, with its anterior and inferior border rounded, and joined to five 

 marginal plates; the second and third are quadrilateral, and the fourth very 

 irregularly hexagonal: each of these plates is surmounted by a knob or tubercle, 

 as in the vertebral range, but placed at the superior and posterior part of the 



