Subfamily Chelodininae Higher classification Elseya Order Turtle | Subphylum Vertebrata Genus Elseya Phylum Chordata Rank Species | |
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Similar Elseya, Turtle, Elseya schultzei, New Guinea snake‑ne, Reimann's snake‑necked turtle | ||
Elseya branderhorstii captive breeding turtle
Elseya branderhorsti (Branderhorst's snapping turtle) is a species of freshwater turtle from the family Chelidae. The species is endemic to West Papua Indonesia and Western Province of Papua New Guinea. Until recently it has been a confusing species due to its lost holotype and sympatry with another, undescribed, species. The species is currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN RedList in part due to its vulnerability to the Asian turtle trade.
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Etymology
The specific name, branderhorsti, is in honor of Dutch physician Bastiaan Branderhorst.
Taxonomy
A neotype was recently defined for this species in order to clarify its taxonomic issues, this neotype is now the name bearing type for the species. In their paper Thomson et al. 2015 went through the entire collection history, as best as is known, and restricted the type locality of the species to "southeastern Papua, Indonesia, between the Lorentz River and Merauke" and the neotype was obtained from this region. The neotype is lodged with the Papua New Guinea National Museum. This type has been identified as being the same species originally described by Ouwens in 1914. The closest relatives of Elseya branderhorsti are the northern snapping turtle and the yellow-bellied snapping turtle, both of northern Australia. These three species together comprise the subgenus Elseya.
Description
Elseya branderhorsti is a large river turtle that can be most readily distinguished from Elseya rhodini, with which it is sympatric, by the absence of a cervical scute; a prominent head shield that does not extend down the parietal arch to the tympanum; and by the presence of a distinctive alveolar ridge. It has a very large (often greater than 400mm) as an adult, broadly oval shell that is dark brown to black on the carapace and cream on the plastron. The iris is indistinct giving it the appearance of no distinctive features in the eye, often referred to as "liquid" eyes.