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Branderhorst's Snapping Turtle
Elseya branderhorsti
Elseya branderhorsti, also known commonly as Branderhorst's turtle and Branderhorst's snapping turtle, is a species of freshwater turtle in the family Chelidae. The species is endemic to southern New Guinea, in West Papua Indonesia and Western Province of Papua New Guinea. Until recently it has been a confusing species due to its lost holotype and its sympatry with another, undescribed, species. E. branderhorsti is currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN RedList in part due to its vulnerability to the Asian turtle trade.
From the article Elseya branderhorsti on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
E. branderhorsti is a large river turtle that can be most readily distinguished from E. rhodini, with which it is sympatric, by the following three characters: the absence of a cervical scute; the presence of a prominent head shield that does not extend down the parietal arch to the tympanum; and by the presence of a distinctive alveolar ridge. As an adult it has a very large, broadly oval shell, often greater than 40 cm (16 in) in straight carapace length, 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.
Range & habitat
The preferred natural habitat of E. branderhorsti is freshwater rivers and swamps.
Wikipedia: “Habitat”
In human culture
The specific name, branderhorsti, is in honor of Dutch physician Bastiaan Branderhorst (born 1880).
Wikipedia: “Etymology”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Elseya branderhorsti in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 73772.