GIANT TURTLE FROM QUEENSLAND LOWER CRETACEOUS.— LONGMAN. 25 



improbable that other remains related to our fossils may ultimately be found in 

 synchronous deposits elsewhere. 



Zittel has pointed out that of the imperfectly known Cretaceous and 

 Tertiary marine turtles which have been placed by some authors in independent 

 families, numerous examples are perhaps most nearly related to the Chelonidce. 2 

 Whilst the plastral plate to be described cannot be associated with any of the 

 forms treated in literature available to the writer, the bones of the shoulder- 

 girdle and limb-fragments point irresistibly to Chelonoid affinities. Until further 

 remains are forthcoming it would be unwise to state an arbitrary systematic 

 position, but temporarily the giant Queensland Turtle may be placed in Gray's 

 family Chelonidce of Baur's superfamily Chelonoidea, under the name of 

 Cratochelone oerneyi. The generic name is in obvious contradistinction to the 

 small Notochelone costata, Owen, 3 from the same district, supplementary portions 

 of which were described by De Vis. 4 Here it may be appropriately mentioned 

 that Eamsay noted 5 " a portion of a pelvis, ' ' received from Lord Howe Island, 

 on which no generic conclusions could be based, but which he stated ' ' will prove 

 to belong to a large sea-turtle." 



CRATOCHELONE BERNEYI, gen. et spec. nov. 

 (Reg. No. Q.M. F.14/550.) 



The fossils consist of four portions of the left shoulder-girdle, with the 

 proximal ends of the left humerus, radius and ulna, and when received these were 

 largely superimposed and the whole crushed down on an incomplete plastral 

 plate, which had also sustained a transverse fracture. All the bones were heavily 

 invested with a fine hard ' ' dirty stone-coloured ' ' matrix, and great difficulty 

 was experienced in exposing the natural contours. Some of the associated cavities 

 were infilled with calcite. Specimens of the common bivalve shell, Aucella 

 hughe mdenensis, Eth. fils, were found in the matrix. A cranial fragment of 

 Portheus australis, A. S. "Woodward, an Ichthyodectoid fish, also forwarded, is 

 noted by Mr. Berney as found lying with above. 



Left shoulder-girdle (Fig. 1, upper view). — The contours of these remains 

 are decidedly Chelonoid. Although the bars are broken off close to the body, the 

 basal curves and the angle between the scapular and its "acromial process" or 

 the precoracoid may be gauged as closely corresponding to those in Chelone 

 my das. Now that the matrix has been removed, the scapular facet of the coracoid 

 may be approximated to its fellow, and here, too, the angles at the base of the 

 coracoid and precoracoid bars and the inward and backward sweep of the former 

 have striking affinities with those in the green turtle. In the fossil the con- 

 tributing curve with the angle of the precoracoid and its base is more open. On 



2 Zittel, Text-book of Palaeontology, vol. ii., p. 198 (Macmillan). 



3 Owen, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., 1882, xxxviii., p. 178. 



4 De Vis, Ann. Queensland Museum, No. 10, 1911, p. 3. 



5 Eamsay, Proc. Lin. Soe. N.S.W., 1882, vii., pi. i., p. 86. 



