High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Paracryptodira are an extinct infraorder of the Testudines, an order of reptiles which includes tortoises, turtles and terrapins. Initially treated as suborder sister to the Cryptodira, they are now known to be a very primitive lineage inside the Cryptodira according to the most common use of the latter taxon. Some less primitive prehistoric cryptodires (e.g. the "horned turtles", Meiolaniidae) as well as the living forms make up the Eucryptodira.