Gray, 1870b
River turtles
Recognition
Fossil dermatemydids have been found in Cretaceous to Miocene deposits from North America, Europe, and eastern Asia, but today this family is only known from one living species, Dermatemys mawii, the Central American river turtle. According to morphological studies by Gaffney (1975b) and Gaffney and Meylan (1988), Dermatemys mawii is most closely related to kinosternid, carettochelyd, and trionychid turtles. The carretochelyd-trionychid link is not, but the kinosternid link is supported by molecular data (Shaffer et al., 1997).