A team of scientists from Hungary, Germany and Vietnam has discovered a new, critically endangered species of softshell turtle in north-central Vietnam and Hainan Island, China.
Spotted softshell turtles (Pelodiscus variegatus) in life, females. Image credit: Thomas Ziegler.
‘Chinese softshell turtles’ were considered for decades to represent the morphologically highly variable and geographically widespread species — Pelodiscus sinensis, distributed from the Far East through the Korean Peninsula, eastern and central China to Vietnam.
However, around the turn of the century, following a series of taxonomic debates, scientists revalidated or discovered a total of three species distinct from the ‘original:’ Pelodiscus axenaria, P. maackii and P. parviformis.
Now, Professor Uwe Fritz of the Senckenberg Natural History Collections and colleagues have described a fifth species in the genus: the spotted softshell turtle (Pelodiscus variegatus).
The new species differs both genetically and morphologically from the other four.
It has well-pronounced dark blotches on the underside of its shell.
“This morphological feature, among others, led to the discovery that these animals belong to a hitherto undescribed species,” said Professor Fritz, senior author of a paper published in the journal ZooKeys.
Unfortunately, the identification of multiple species within what used to be a single one has its potentially ill-fated consequences.
While Pelodiscus sinensis was once considered widespread and not threatened, each newly-discovered species ‘reduces’ the individual population numbers.
“When we look at each species, the distribution range as well as the number of individuals is much smaller than when all were combined,” Professor Fritz explained.
Because of its restricted range and the levels of exploitation it is subjected to, the conservation status of the new species is proposed to be ‘Critically Endangered,’ according to the criteria of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
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B. Farkas et al. 2019. A new species of Pelodiscus from northeastern Indochina (Testudines, Trionychidae). ZooKeys 824: 71-86; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.824.31376
