Meiolaniidae

Meiolaniidae is an extinct family of large, possibly herbivorous stem-turtles with heavily armored heads and tails known from South America and most of Oceania. Though once believed to be cryptodires, they are not closely related to any living species of turtle, and lie outside crown group Testudines, having diverged from them around the Middle Jurassic.[2][3][4] They are best known from the last surviving genus, Meiolania, which lived in the rain forests of Australia from the Miocene until the Pleistocene, and insular species that lived on Lord Howe Island and New Caledonia during the Pleistocene and possibly the Holocene for the latter.

Meiolaniidae Temporal range: Middle Eocene to Holocene 48–0.003 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Meiolania platyceps
Niolamia skull
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	†Meiolaniformes
Family:	†Meiolaniidae Lydekker, 1887
Genera
†Gaffneylania[1] †Ninjemys †Niolamia †Meiolania †Warkalania

A similar form is also known from the Miocene Saint Bathans fauna of New Zealand.[5]

The family was once thought to have originated in Australia sometime in the Miocene, when the earliest Meiolania first appeared. However, due to the discovery of South American meiolaniids, including Niolamia in Eocene Argentina, it is now believed that the meiolaniids appeared sometime prior to the breakup of South America, Australia and Antarctica during the Eocene.

More recently, Eocene Australian species have also been uncovered.[6]