In 1909, the famous paleontologist Louis Dollo identified two putative new species of giant soft-shelled turtles from the lowest Eocene record of Belgium, ‘Trionyx erquelinnensis’ and ‘Trionyx levalensis’, from Erquelinnes and Leval, respectively. However, these proposals did not meet the requirements of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, so they were considered as nomina nuda. The information on these specimens or about any other specimen of this lineage of giant turtles from the Belgian record is currently extremely limited. Relatively scarce material from giant trionychids has been described for the lower Eocene record of other European regions. Considering the available information, all the European material has recently been recognized as belonging to the genus Axestemys, which has a North American origin, and possibly attributable to a single species, Axestemys vittata, which currently lacks a diagnosis. Numerous and well-preserved Belgian specimens are deposited in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. In addition to the cited individuals from Erquelinnes and Leval, additional specimens from both localities, as well as others from Orp-le-Grand, are part of this collection. These specimens, found between the decades of 1910 and 1930, have been recently restored, and their study is carried out here. The presence of Axestemys vittata in Belgium (in Leval and Orp-le-Grand) is confirmed. Knowledge about this species is significantly improved, and a diagnosis is proposed. However, the hypothesis proposed by Dollo is here confirmed, this species being not the only identified in the Belgian record. So, Axestemys erquelinnensis nov. sp. is defined based on the carapace from Erquelinnes known by Dollo, suggesting that the genus probably reached Europe during the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
We describe new material of the tristichopterids cf. Langlieria socqueti and cf. Eusthenodon wangsjoi and other unassignable tetrapodomorph remains from the upper Famennian locality of Strud, Belgium. Because of recent improvements in our tristichopterid knowledge, a new phylogenetic analysis is presented in addition to a paleobiogeographic analysis using the Bayesian binary Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) statistical method. The origin of the whole tristichopterid clade is reconstructed with a very likely western European origin. Much of the early tristichopterid history took place in Euramerica. During the Late Devonian, tristichopterids most probably spread from Euramerica into Gondwana. The highly nested tristichopterid clade formed by Cabonnichthys burnsi, Mandageria fairfaxi, E. wangsjoi, Edenopteron keithcrooki, and Hyneria lindae most likely differentiated in Australia. Then dispersal events occurred from Australia to Euramerica with Hyneria lindae (to eastern North America) and E. wangsjoi (to Greenland/western Europe). The latter dispersal events, during the Famennian, are in agreement with the Great Devonian Interchange, which predicts dispersal events between Gondwana and Euramerica at this time.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
Jean François Xavier Roffiaen (1820–1898) was a Belgian landscape painter with a profound interest in malacology. A founding member of the Société malacologique de Belgique, Roffiaen contributed several publications on molluscs. Among such studies, his 1868 paper on Swiss terrestrial and freshwater gastropods introduced 14 new taxa (species and varieties) belonging to the Clausiliidae, Discidae, Helicidae, Lymnaeidae, Valvatidae, and Viviparidae. However, Roffiaen’s malacological contributions largely faded from recognition, primarily due to the unknown whereabouts of his type material. This study revisits his work by identifying and analysing specimens from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS). Of the 14 taxa described by Roffiaen, type specimens for nine (including the two full species) have been recovered, enabling a reassessment of their taxonomic status as synonyms of better-known and widespread species. The serendipitous finding of these type specimens reaffirms the importance of maintaining museum collections, and the implementation of digitization programs to uncover/recover such “lost” information, enabling it to be made available to the scientific community at large.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025
