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Emydidae (Latin emys (freshwater tortoise) + Ancient Greek εἶδος (eîdos, “appearance, resemblance”)) is a family of testudines (turtles) that includes close to 50 species in 10 genera. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Members of this family are commonly called terrapins , pond turtles , or marsh turtles . [ 1 ]
In the UK, tortoises are land-dwellers, while turtles and terrapins are aquatic (terrapins are slightly fonder of the land than turtles). But in the US, turtle covers all three.
It is monotypic, being represented by the single species, Myobatrachus gouldii, also known as the turtle frog. It gets its name from the resemblance to a shell-less chelonian, which is a type of turtle. It is described to have an extremely small narrow head, short limbs, and a round body. They can get up to 45 millimetres (1.8 in) long. [2]
Terrapins do not form a taxonomic unit and may not be closely related. Many belong to the families Geoemydidae and Emydidae. The name "terrapin" is derived from torope, a word in an Algonquian language [1] that referred to the species Malaclemys terrapin (the Diamondback terrapin). It appears that the term became part of common usage during the ...
The word turtle is borrowed from the French word tortue or tortre 'turtle, tortoise'. [3] It is a common name and may be used without knowledge of taxonomic distinctions. In North America, it may denote the order as a whole. In Britain, the name is used for sea turtles as opposed to freshwater terrapins and land-dwelling tortoises. In Australia ...
The European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis), also called commonly the European pond terrapin and the European pond tortoise, is a species of long-living freshwater turtle in the family Emydidae. [3] The species is endemic to the Western Palearctic .
Testudines (Turtles, tortoises & terrapins) An anapsid is an amniote whose skull lacks one or more skull openings (fenestra, or fossae) near the temples . [ 1 ] Traditionally, the Anapsida are considered the most primitive subclass of amniotes, the ancestral stock from which Synapsida and Diapsida evolved, making anapsids paraphyletic .
Previously, the Galápagos tortoise was considered to belong to the genus Geochelone, known as 'typical tortoises' or 'terrestrial turtles'. In the 1990s, subgenus Chelonoidis was elevated to generic status based on phylogenetic evidence which grouped the South American members of Geochelone into an independent clade (branch of the tree of life ...