Testudines

Speybroeck, Jeroen, Beukema, Wouter & Crochet, Pierre-André, 2010, A tentative species list of the European herpetofauna (Amphibia and Reptilia) — an update, Zootaxa 2492, pp. 1-27 : 9

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 .