#retpile

Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus), family Agamidae, Mount Magnet, Western Australia

Ryukyu Black-breasted Leaf Turtle (Geoemyda japonica), family Geoemydidae, endemic to the Ryuku Islands of Japan

ENDANGERED.

Dragon Snake ⤴

Rat Snake⤵  

The small Roamer, Meiolania (1886)

Phylum : Chordata Class : Reptilia Order : Testudines Family : Meiolaniidae Genus : Meiolania Species : M. brevicollis, M. damelipi, M. platyceps, M. mackayi

Pleistocene/Recent (2 Ma - 2 000 years)

2,5 m long and 500 kg (size)

Lord Howe Island/Queensland, Australia (map)

Meiolania was one of the largest, and one of the most bizarre, prehistoric turtles in earth's history: this slow-moving denizen of Pleistocene Australia not only sported a huge, hard shell, but its strangely armored head and spiked tail seem to have been borrowed from the ankylosaur dinosaurs that predated it by tens of millions of years. In turtle terms, Meiolania has proven difficult to classify, because as far as experts can tell it neither retracted its head into its shell (like one major type of turtle) nor swung it back and forth (like the other major type).