The
Chelidae are one of three living families of the
turtle suborder
Pleurodira and are commonly called the Austro-South American side-neck turtles. The family is distributed in
Australia,
New Guinea, parts of
Indonesia, and throughout most of
South America. It is a large family of turtles with a significant fossil history dating back to the Cretaceous. The family is entirely
Gondwanan in origin, with no members found outside of Gondwana, either in the present day or as a fossil.