24 



Curtis C. Bentley and James L. Knight 



Neurals - These thin, very broad, smooth elements are distinctive 

 among emydid turtles. 



Axial and appendicular skeleton - Although cranial material of this 

 species is distinctive, the generalized nature of the postcranial material makes the 

 assignment to E. blandingii tentative. 



Remarks: The recent distribution of E. blandingii is limited to southern Ontario 

 and the Great Lakes region, with scattered populations occuring westward into 

 northeastern Nebraska and south into northeastern Missouri, and eastward into 

 New York and Massachusetts on the Atlantic coast (Conant and Collins 1991). 

 The nearest fossil records of Emydoidea blandingii to the Ardis site are from 

 Catalpa Creek, Mississippi (Jackson and Kaye 1975), and at New Trout Cave, 

 West Virginia (Holman and Grady 1987). Both records are late Pleistocene. 



The well preserved fossil material from the Ardis site (Fig. 8) is the first 

 report of this species on the Atlantic Coastal Plain and is a range extension of 

 about 1,200 km from its present continuous distribution and nearly 525 km south 

 of the nearest reported fossil locality at New Trout Cave. 



Habitats frequented by E. blandingii are generally in shallow, lentic 

 waters with soft substrate, such as ponds, streams, marshes and sloughs (Ernst 

 and Barbour 1989). 



Fig. 8 Fossil Emydoidea blandingii carapace (.547). 



5 cm 



