FAM. 3. CINOSTERNIDAE, represented by the single genus _Cinosternum_, with about ten species in North and Central America, and one in Guiana. Closely allied to the two previous families, with which it agrees by the separation of the pubic and ischiadic symphyses, the presence of an ento-plastral plate, the possession of inframarginal shields (Fig. 61, 3, p. 315), the widely open temporal fossae, and the rib-like pair of processes to the nuchal plate. It agrees with the Dermatemydidae in the interruption of the neural plates by the meeting of several pairs of the costal plates. There are 23 marginal shields; five or four shields, according to the presence or absence of the gular on the plastron, and in some species these plastral shields become, with age, more and more separated from each other by soft skin (see Fig. 75). The shape and size of the plastron differ considerably in the various species; in most of them, e.g. in _C. pennsylvanicum_ and _C. leucostomum_, but not in _C. odoratum_, the anterior and posterior lobes are movable, with transverse soft hinges, so that the animal can completely close its shell. The skin of the legs and neck is so baggy and loose that these parts slip in, the skin rolling off, when the creature withdraws into its shell. They lay only a few–from three to five–elliptical eggs, which have a shining, glazed, and thick, but very brittle shell. {343}[Illustration: FIG. 75.–_Cinosternum odoratum_, young specimens. × ⅔. A and B, males; C, female.]