Meiolania is an extinct genus of meiolaniid stem-turtle native to Australasia throughout much of the Cenozoic. Meiolania was a large turtle, with the shell alone ranging from 0.7–2 m in length. Four species are currently recognized, although the validity of two of them is disputed. Meiolania was first described as a species of lizard related to Megalania by Richard Owen towards the end of the 19th century, before the continued discovery of additional fossils solidified its placement as a kind of turtle.
Meiolania
Meiolania platyceps AMNH 29076 skull cast
The limbs of Meiolania are thought to have been covered in plate and cone-shaped osteoderms, similar to the armor seen on some modern tortoises.
One hypothesis suggests Meiolania could have rafted to distant islands
Meiolaniidae is an extinct family of large, probably herbivorous stem-group turtles with heavily armored heads and clubbed tails known from South America and Australasia. 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. They are best known from the last surviving genus, Meiolania, which lived in 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. Meiolaniids are part of the broader grouping of Meiolaniformes, which contains more primitive turtles species lacking the distinctive morphology of meiolaniids, known from the Early Cretaceous-Paleocene of South America and Australia.
Meiolaniidae
A 1914 depiction of Niolamia by Heinrich Harder.
Range of meiolaniids in the South Pacific
Meiolaniids may have used their tails in combat with other members of their species.