Hoyasemys is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of basal eucryptodiran freshwater turtle

Turtle

Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...

 from Lower Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...

 (upper Barremian

Barremian

The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale between 130.0 ± 1.5 Ma and 125.0 ± 1.0 Ma). It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous epoch...

 stage) deposits of Cuenca Province, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. It is known from the holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 MCCM-LH 84, a nearly complete and articulated skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

 including the skull

Skull

The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...

. It was found in the 1980s from the Las Hoyas site of the Calizas de La Huérguina Formation, near La Cierva

La Cierva

La Cierva is a municipality in Cuenca, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It has a population of 52....

 township, Spain. It was first named by Adán Pérez-García, Marcelo S. de la Fuente and Francisco Ortega in 2011

2011 in paleontology

-Lobopods:-Arachnids:-Insects:-Newly named jawless vertebrates:-Newly named acanthodian:-Newly named cartilaginous fishes:-Newly named bony fishes:-Newly named lepospondyls:-Newly named temnospondyls:-Newly named lissamphibians:...

 and the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 is Hoyasemys jimenezi. The generic name is derived from the word Hoyas meaning "the basin" in Spanish, which refers to the Las Hoyas fossil site it was found in, and emys ("freshwater turtle" in Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

). The specific name honors Dr. Emiliano Jiménez Fuentes.

Phylogeny

Cladogram

Cladogram

A cladogram is a diagram used in cladistics which shows ancestral relations between organisms, to represent the evolutionary tree of life. Although traditionally such cladograms were generated largely on the basis of morphological characters, DNA and RNA sequencing data and computational...

 after Pérez-García, Fuente & Ortega, 2011: