#bashuchelys

Bashuchelys was a genus of bashuchelyid turtle from the Middle Jurassic. Its type species is B. zigongensis. The other included species is B. youngi. Its known specimens were found in the Sichuan Basin, China. Bashuchelys' known material is made up of many fossils originally assigned to Chengychelys.

"Bashu" means "Bashan," which refers to both the Ba mountain of the Chongqing area and the Shushui river system (also an alternate Chinese name for the Sichuan-Chongqing area). "chelys" is greek for turtle. B. zigongensis, originally assigned to Chengychelys, is named after the nearby town of Zigong, China. B. youngi honors the original discoverer of Chengchelys, C. C. Young.

Its autapomorphies include one pair of mesoplastra that meet at the midline, a hypoplastron-mesoplastron suture that is very close to the pectoroabdominal sulcus, regular and elongate neural series, the fourth vertebral scute is twice as wide as it is long and notably wider than the third vertebral, a sulcus between the third and fourth vertebrals on the sixth neural, the plastron sutured to the carapace, a fan-shaped bridge with long axillary and inguinal buttresses, a short area of contact between the epiplastra at the midline, the humeropectoral sulcus lying far anterior to the axillary notch, a notably longer pectoral scute than the abdominal, an omega-shaped femoroanal sulcus that extends onto the hypoplastron, a leaf-shaped entoplastron with serrated posterolateral margins, one pair of intergulars extending deeply onto the endoplastron, and four inframarginals.

Bashuchelys is known from several shell fossils of various completeness. Its family, Bashuchelyidae, is a primitive member of Cryptodira.

Citations: Bashuchelys formal diagnosis; "Chengchelys" baenoides description; "Chengchelys" zigongensis description