Bairdemys

Bairdemys is an extinct genus of side-necked turtles in the family Podocnemididae. The genus existed from the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene and its fossils have been found in South Carolina, Puerto Rico, Panama and Venezuela. The genus was described in 2002 by Gaffney & Wood and the type species is B. hartsteini.

Taxonomy

Bairdemys belonged to the Stereogenyini, a tribe of the subfamily Erymnochelyinae that had adapted to coastal marine habitats and was successful from the late Oligocene through much of the Neogene. This tribe was primarily diverse along the coastlines of the Tethys ocean of Africa and Asia, with Bairdemys being the only genus inhabiting the coastlines of the western Atlantic Ocean along the Americas. The separation between the Afro-Asian Stereogenyita and the American Bairdemydita appears to have occurred at the start of the Late Oligocene.

The first species in the genus described was B. venezuelensis as Podocnemis venezuelensis by Wood and Díaz de Gamero in 1971.

Bairdemys was placed phylogenetically by Ferreira et al. in 2015.

Fossils of Bairdemys have been found in:
;Late Oligocene

;Early-Mid Miocene

;Late Miocene