Gaffneylania, Sterli & De La Fuente & Krause, 2015

Sterli, Juliana, De La Fuente, Marcelo S. & Krause, J. Marcelo, 2015, A new turtle from the Palaeogene of Patagonia (Argentina) sheds new light on the diversity and evolution of the bizarre clade of horned turtles (Meiolaniidae, Testudinata), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 174 (3), pp. 519-548 : 525

GAFFNEYLANIA GEN. NOV.

Derivatio nominis: Gaffney, named after Dr Eugene S. Gaffney in recognition of his enormous contribution in the understanding of the anatomy and phylogeny of turtles and especially for his work on meiolaniids. The etymology for lania is confusing. Originally, Owen (1858) described the first remains of meiolaniids as belonging to the land lizard Megalania prisca Owen, 1858 . He provided the etymology of Megalania as: Mega, from the Greek word for great (Με´γας) and lania from the ancient Greek word from ‘to roam about’ (ηλ´aíνω). Later, Gaffney et al. (1992) concluded that lania comes from the Latin lanius that means ‘butcher’. In this case, we follow Owen (1858).

Type species: Gaffneylania auricularis

Locality: As for the species.

Horizon: As for the species.

Diagnosis: As for the species.