Testudines or Chelonii

Different opinions exist on whether Testudines (e.g. Fritz and Havas 2007; Rhodin et al. 2008) or Chelonii (e.g. Bour and Dubois 1985) should be used to refer to the the order of turtles, tortoises and terrapins.

Spinks and Shaffer (2009) performed a phylogenetic study of the genus Emys based on multiple genes, both mtDNA and nuclear. There is generally no reciprocal monophyly between Emys orbicularis (European Pond Terrapin) and E. trinacris (Sicilian Pond Terrapin) in their trees based on nuclear genes, providing additional substantiation for rejection of the latter taxon at species level (Speybroeck and Crochet 2007).

Fritz et al. (2009) investigated the mitochondrial phylogeography of the Spur-thighed Tortoise ( Testudo graeca) from the western parts of the Mediterranean, and recognised T. g. nabeulensis as a valid subspecies for the Tunisian populations, with Sardinian and Sicilian animals belonging to this taxon. In this arrangement, Majorcan and Spanish populations remain treated as T. g. graeca .