The northernmost occurrence of Chelydra serpentina in the eastern US during the Pleistocene
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biogeography, Ecology, Paleontology
- Keywords
- Pleistocene, Snapping Turtle, Ice Age New Jersey, Taphonomy
- Copyright
- © 2016 Brownstein
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. The northernmost occurrence of Chelydra serpentina in the eastern US during the Pleistocene. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2281v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2281v1
Abstract
The snapping turtle species Chelydra serpentina, which has a wide range across North America, is extremely tolerant to cold and even freezing conditions. Here, I describe a single caudal vertebrae referred to Chelydra serpentina from the Late Pleistocene of New Jersey which represents the northernmost known occurrence of the species in eastern North America and the closest known occurrence of the species to a glacier or ice sheet in the continent during the Pleistocene. The specimen, which was collected at Ramanessin Brook in Holmdel, New Jersey, affirms that the Pleistocene deposits which line the banks of the popular Cretaceous site are not taphonomically biased to preserving larger fossils and in the future may yield an assemblage of small vertebrates.
Author Comment
This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.