Stejneger (1907:509) noted that Chelonia as originally published by Brongniart (1800:89) is a nomen nudum. Smith and Smith (1979:259-260) and Pritchard and Trebbau (1984:279) agreed, but suggested that Latreille (1801:22) used Chelonia as a family and not a genus name. Reviewed by Hirth (1980a), Cogger et al. (1983), and Pritchard and Trebbau (1984).