PBDB Collection

Near Indamane village (Cretaceous of Niger)

Also known as In Daman, Mont Indamane, Mont Igdaman, In Dama Mount

Where: Tahoua, Niger (15.4° N, 5.8° E: paleocoordinates 5.4° N, 0.6° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Farin-Doutchi Formation, Late/Upper Maastrichtian (70.6 - 66.0 Ma)

• Upper part of Lower Sandstones and Mudstones of “Term I” of Greigert (1966), and in the base of the Mosasaurus shales or Farin-Doutchi Formation, FD1 member

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; gypsum

• R. sahelica n. gen., n. sp. appears as coming from a similarly textured bone bed bank as Nigeremys and Ilatardia but not obligatory of the same exact geological bank. The broken bones, the inlaying gypsum in a phosphatic not marly bed correspond to a similar littoral environment for the fossils, less continental than the underlying Lower sandstones and mudstones with dinosaurs of Indamane (Greigert et al. 1954; Greigert 1966) and those of the Ibeceten beds (Broin et al. 1974) and In Tahout area (see below).

• Gypsiferous phosphatic bone bed

Size class: macrofossils

Reposited in the MNHN

Collection methods: mechanical,

• The new skull and only collected specimen (LC), was prepared (FLB) by water and manual chisel, the phosphatic gypsum crust making inefficient any acid attack, not making known all sutures.

Primary reference: F. de Lapparent de Broin, L. Chirio, and R. Bour. 2020. The oldest erymnochelyine turtle skull, Ragechelus sahelica n. gen., n. sp., from the Iullemmeden basin, Upper Cretaceous of Africa, and the associated fauna in its geographical and geological context. Geodiversitas 42(25):455-484 [E. Vlachos/E. Vlachos/P. Mannion]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 214919: authorized by Evangelos Vlachos, entered by Evangelos Vlachos on 23.10.2020, edited by Philip Mannion

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names

Reptilia
Testudines - Podocnemididae	Ragechelus sahelica n. gen. n. sp. Ragechelus sahelica n. gen. n. sp. de Lapparent de Broin et al. 2020 sideneck turtle MNHN.RA.2018.0078 - holotype (skull)
Testudines - Bothremydidae	Abalakemys chapmanae n. gen. n. sp. Abalakemys chapmanae n. gen. n. sp. Pérez-García 2023 sideneck turtle NHMUK R37356 - holotype (almost complete and articulated shell)