Bothremydidae BAUR 1891

Gen. et sp. indet. (Fig. 10)

EXAMINED MATERIAL. — Fragment of a carapace constituted of two right peripherals with adjacent peripherals and costal parts, CPAG-RANKT-V-4.

LOCALITY. — Lower part of the Khadro Formation of the Ranikot Group, early Paleocene, locality K18-12, in the proximity of Ranikot Fort, Jamshoro District, Sindh Province, Southern Pakistan (Fig. 1).

DESCRIPTION AND COMPARISONS

The specimen (17 cm long × 10 cm wide) includes a right bridge portion of carapace with the posterior part of the peripheral 5, the complete peripherals 6 and 7, with a small part of the peripheral 8, sutured to the lateral end of the costals 3 (part), 4 (complete extremity) and 8 (minimal part). In dorsal view (Fig. 10B, C), the peripherals (complete 6 th and 7 th) are wide and display an incurved surface. The free border is thick but neither rounded nor acute. In ventral view (Fig. 10A), the posterior extremity of the bridge is positioned at first third of the 7th peripheral. The sutured border of the plates with the plastron is weakly indented to receive the corresponding weak indentations of the hypoplastron. The fragment was colonized by a perforating animal, such as the pholad bivalve, which nested forming rounded cavities. That occurred once the carapace was dislocated in the marine-littoral water ground, because the cavities are distributed as well on the external face, on the periphero-hypoplastral suture and in the inner bridge cavity, being of various sizes.

The fragment is noticeable by its ornamentation, which does not substantially differ from that of S. ragei n. gen., n. sp., being made of wide protruding polygons (Fig. 10C) but which are more marked. The polygons are very elongated and well defined and as elongated as in some plates of S. ragei n. gen., n. sp., (Fig. 8C, E), but more protruding, perhaps because of a better preservation at this location. The only certitude is that it does not correspond to any other decorated bothremydid examined above by comparison with Sindhochelys. Although similar to Sindhochelys by the marked decoration and different from taphrosphyines and other examined bothremydids from France and India, the fragment remains undetermined.