paracryptodira

{{Short description|Extinct clade of turtles}}

__NOTOC__

{{automatic taxobox

| name = Paracryptodires

| fossil_range = {{fossilrange|Late Jurassic|Eocene|earliest=Middle Jurassic}}

| image = Chisternon.jpg

| image_caption = Chisternon undatum

| image2 = Dorsetochelys_skull_Dorset_County_Museum.JPG

| image2_caption = Dorsetochelys skull

| taxon = Paracryptodira

| authority = Gaffney, 1975

| subdivision_ranks = Subtaxa

| subdivision = See text

| synonyms = Pleurosternoidea

}}

Paracryptodira is an extinct group of reptiles in the clade Testudinata (which contains modern turtles and their extinct relatives), known from the Jurassic to Paleogene of North America and Europe. Initially treated as a suborder sister to Cryptodira,Gaffney (1975) they were then thought to be a very primitive lineage inside the Cryptodira according to the most common use of the latter taxon.Joyce (2007) They are now often regarded as late-diverging stem-turtles, lying outside the clade formed by Cryptodira and Pleurodira.{{cite journal |last1=Evers |first1=S. W. |last2=Benson |first2=R. B. J. |title=A new phylogenetic hypothesis of turtles with implications for the timing and number of evolutionary transitions to marine lifestyles in the group |journal=Palaeontology |date=2019 |volume=62 |issue=1 |pages=93–134 |doi=10.1111/pala.12384|s2cid=134736808 |url=https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:33a26ae9-a5f6-43b5-ace1-2d17b1dadeb6 }}{{cite journal |last1=Pérez-García |first1=Adán |title=Surviving the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event: A terrestrial stem turtle in the Cenozoic of Laurasia |journal=Scientific Reports |date=2020 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=1489 |doi=10.1038/s41598-020-58511-8 |pmid=32001765 |pmc=6992736}}{{cite journal|publisher=Peabody Museum of Natural History - Yale|last= Joyce| first= Walter G.|date=April 2017|title=A Review of the Fossil Record of Basal Mesozoic Turtles|url=https://bioone.org/journals/Bulletin-of-the-Peabody-Museum-of-Natural-History/volume-58/issue-1/014.058.0105/A-Review-of-the-Fossil-Record-of-Basal-Mesozoic-Turtles/10.3374/014.058.0105.short|journal=Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History|language=en|volume=58|issue=1|pages=65–113|doi=10.3374/014.058.0105|s2cid= 54982901|issn=0079-032X}}{{Cite journal|last1=Joyce|first1=Walter G.|last2=Anquetin|first2=Jérémy|date=October 2019|title=A Review of the Fossil Record of Nonbaenid Turtles of the Clade Paracryptodira|url=https://bioone.org/journals/Bulletin-of-the-Peabody-Museum-of-Natural-History/volume-60/issue-2/014.060.0204/A-Review-of-the-Fossil-Record-of-Nonbaenid-Turtles-of/10.3374/014.060.0204.full|journal=Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History|volume=60|issue=2|pages=129–155|doi=10.3374/014.060.0204|s2cid=203780510|issn=0079-032X}} Paracryptodires are divided into three main groups, Compsemydidae, known from the Late Jurassic to Paleocene of North America and Europe, Pleurosternidae, known from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous of North America and Europe, and Baenidae, known from the Early Cretaceous to Eocene of North America. The latter two groups are more closely related to each other than to Compsemys, forming the clade Baenoidea.