The world-famous upper Miocene fossil localities on the Aegean island of Samos in Greece have produced a rich fossil record that sheds light on the evolution of eastern Mediterranean terrestrial faunas over a one-million-year interval of the late Neogene. Fossils have been discovered on Samos since antiquity, although a succession of paleontological and commercial collecting expeditions over the last 130 years has resulted in specimens now being distributed throughout museums all over the world. Here, we survey the fossil tortoise remains from Samos, which are significant because they include early antecedents of the modern Testudo lineage, together with spectacular examples of the European Neogene gigantic testudinid †Titanochelon, which represents one of the largest-bodied terrestrial turtle taxa documented to date. All of the Samos fossils derive from the Mytilinii Formation, which spans the late MN11–early MN13 Neogene land mammal zones. The small-bodied tortoise remains include two incomplete shells that are morphologically consistent with basal testudonans and phylogenetically distinct from the coeval species Testudo marmorum found on mainland Greece. The Samos gigantic tortoise †‘Testudo’ schafferi was based on a spectacularly large skull and femur. However, we describe new plastron fragments, limb elements, and osteoderms that are compatible with †Titanochelon specimens from southern Greece and Anatolia. This could imply faunal links with the distinctive ‘Pikermian’ local assemblages from Asia Minor and concurs with the proposed late Miocene–Pliocene biogeographic segregation of large mammals from the eastern Aegean margin and Turkey relative to those occurring in northwestern Greece and the Balkan Peninsula.

希腊萨摩斯岛爱琴海岛上举世闻名的中新世上层化石地方已经产生了丰富的化石记录，这为晚近新近纪的一百万年间地中海东部陆生动物群的进化提供了启示。自上古以来，在萨摩斯岛就发现了化石，尽管过去130年来的一系列古生物学和商业性收藏远征使标本如今在世界各地的博物馆中分发。在这里，我们调查了来自萨摩斯岛的化石龟遗骸，这些遗迹很重要，因为它们包括现代Testudo血统的早期先例，以及欧洲新近系巨大的testudinid† Titanochelon的壮观实例。，代表迄今记录的最大的陆生龟类群之一。所有的萨摩斯化石都来自Mytilinii组，该组跨越MN11后期至MN13早期的新近纪陆地哺乳动物区域。小身体的乌龟遗骸包括两个不完整的壳，它们在形态上与基底睾丸素一致，并且在系统发育上不同于在希腊大陆上发现的同等物种早udo。萨摩斯巨大的乌龟†“陆” schafferi是基于一个引人注目的大头骨和大腿骨。但是，我们描述了与† Titanochelon兼容的新的plastron碎片，肢体元素和骨皮来自希腊南部和安纳托利亚的标本。这可能意味着与小亚细亚独特的“ Pikermian”本地动物群建立了动物群联系，并同意了爱琴海东部边缘和土耳其相对于希腊西北部和巴尔干半岛的大型哺乳动物拟中新世-上新世晚期地理隔离。