Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Seidel, Michael E.

English

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyEarth and Planetary Science

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TRACHEMYS TERRAPEN Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles. Seidel, Michael E. 1988. Trachemys terrapen. Tracbemys terrapen (Lacephk) Jamaican Slider Testudo terrapen Lacep$de, 1788:129. Type-locality, "Jamaica." Holotype not designated. Testudo palust& Gmelin, 1789:1041. Type-locality "Jamaica." Holotype not designated. Testudo fmciata: Suckow, 1798:40. Type-locality, "Arnboina and Virginia," revised by Seidel (1988) to "Jamaica." Holotype not designated. Tatudo rugosa Shaw, 1802:28. Type-locality, unknown. See Com- ment. Emys rugosa livida: Gray, 1831:30. Emys decussakz Gosse, 1851:187. Emys rugosa: Gosse, 1851:189. Chrysemp scripta rugosa: Boulenger, 188979. Trachemys palustnk Baur, 1893:776. Chrysemys scripta palustris Siebenrock, 1909:464. Pseudemp palustris: Stejneger, 1304:710. Pseuakmys felis Barbour, 1935:205. Type-locality, "Tea Bay, Cat Island, Bahamas." Holotype, Mus. Comp. Zool., Harvard 38385, an adult female, collected by Wilton G. Albury and Charles S. Dooley, January 1935 (examined by author). Pseuakmyspalust?fs felis: Mertens, 1939:39. Pseuakmp terrapen: Barbour and Carr, 1940:391. Pseudemys terrapen terrapen: Mertens and Wermuth, 1955:366. Pseuakmp terrapen felis: Parsons, 1%0:118. Chrysemys terrapen: McDowell, 1964:274. Chrysemys felis Schwartz, 1968:259. Chrysemys decussata felis: Schwartz, 1%8:259. Chrysemp terrap'n: Auffenberg, 1974:134. Lapsus. Chrysemys terrapen terrapen: Obst, 1983:23. Chrysemys terrapen felk Obst, 1983:23. Tmchemys terrapen: Seidel and IncMustegui, 1984468. First use of combination. Tmchemys terrapen felis: Iverson, 1985:5. Trachemys terrapen terrapen: Iverson, 1985:5. Trachemys felis: Seidel and Adkins, 1987:485. Content. The species is monotypic. Deflnltion andDiagnosis. A moderate-sized species of Tra- chemys, males are 100-200 mm in carapace length and females 110- 270 mm. The adult carapace is uniform brown or olive, weakly keeled with longitudinal ridges or ~gosi t ies  at the base of each pleural, and has serrated posterior marginals. In juveniles and some young adults, the pleurals scutes have a dark spot encircled by a yellow or orange ring and a similar ocellate figure overlapping the seam between each pair of marginals. The adult plastron is usually plain yellow or light tan, but in juveniles there may be evidence of an interrupted figure, especially on the gular scutes. The undersides of marginals at the bridge area have a faded ocellate figure overlap ping the seams. The skin is gray or grayish-brown with relatively few markings in adults, other than four pale yellow stripes along the underside of the neck and chin, and two weakly defined light bands on the forelegs. In juveniles, additional yellow stripes along the lateral portions of the head and hindlimbs may be present, including a supratemporal stripe which is occasionally orange. All markings fade or disappear with age, sometimes within the 2nd or 3rd year (except for populations in western Jamaica). The tomium is smooth or slightly serrate and the median ridge of the alveolar surface is weakly developed. The snout of mature males is relatively short, and melanism is not pronounced in older individuals. T. terrapen is distinguished from all other species of Trachenys by the following characteristics: carapace flared posteriorly, width at maginal VII-VIII seam usually greater than 76% of carapace length; dorsal length of cervical scute usually more than 7% of carapace length; ventral underlap of cervical scute typically broad, greater than 4% of carapce length, anterior width of the plastron (at gular-humoral seam) more than 23% of carapace length; plastral scutes with concentrations of black pigment along the borders of seams. m p t i o n s .  General descriptions are in Lynn and Grant (1940), Barbour and Carr (19401, Pritchard (19791, and ~eidel(1988). Illustrations. Color photographs or drawings are in Barbour and Carr (1940) and Pritchard (1979). Black and white photographs or drawings are found in Wermuth and Mertens (196i) anduseidel (1988). Bones of the pectoral girdle and limbs are illustrated in Auffenberg (1974) and Mlynarski (1976). Illustrations of the skull appear in Wermuth and Mertens (1961) and Seidel(1988). Distribution. Trachemys terrapen is widely distributed on Jamaica. Populations in the northern Bahamas on Cat Island, Eleuthera, and possibly Andros Island are apparently the result of human introduction (Seidel, 1988). ,Fossil Record. No fossils have been identified, but Seidel (1988, Pregill pers. comm.) refers to a late Pleistocene fossil from San Salvador, Bahamas which may be T. terrapen. Pertinent Literature. General accounts are in Barbour and Cam (1%0), Lynn and Grant (1940), and Pritchard (1979). Additional references are listed by topic: Taxonomy: Williams (1956), McDow- Map. Circles indicate known localities. Type locality is too imprecise to plot. ell ( I N ) ,  Seidel and Smith (1986), Seidel and Adkins (19871, and Seidel(1988). Karyotype: Bickham and Baker (1976) and Bickham and Carr (1983). Electrophoresis: Seidel and Adkins (1987). Dis- tribution: Barbour (1935), Schwartz and Henderson (19851, Iverson (1986), and Seidel(1988). Zoogeography and evolution: Barbour and Carr (1941) and Seidel (1988). Choanal structure: Parsons (1%). Feeding and reproductive habits: Barbour and Shreve (1935), Lynn and Grant (19401, Hodsdon and Pearson (1943), and Groombridge (1982). Etymology. The name terrapen derives from the New Latin terrapene (of Indian origin) for turtle. Comment. The identity of Shaw's (1802) Testudo rugosa remains questionable. Although no type specimen or locality was designated in the original description, Barbour and Carr (1940) included T. rugosa in the synonymy of T. terrapen based on pho- tographs of the purported type specimen (adult melanistic male, shell only, collection of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, No. 990, presumed lost in 1941). Mittleman (1947), based exclusively on data published by Shaw (1802) and Barbour and Cam (1940), concluded that Shaw's T. rugosawas the Cuban form, T. decussata. Shaw (1802) illustrated the type specimen (shell) in dorsal view only, and most of the characters which distinguish T. decussata from T. terrapen (Seidel, 1988) cannot be determined. Populations of Tracbemys in the northern Bahamas have frequently been assigned to the species or subspecies fells. However Seidel(1988) and Seidel and Adkins (1987) presented morphological and biochemical evidence that these populations are referrable to T. terrapen. Putative hybrid Trachemys in artificial ponds on Hog Cay (Paradise Island), New Providence, have been recognized as a composite of human introductions from other West Indian islands and 'perhaps the United States (Campbell, 1978; Groombridge, 1982). Biochemical evidence (Seidel and Adkins, 1987) supports the theory that these turtles are a T. srejnegm' x terrapa hybrid swarm, probably due to importations from Great Inagua and Cat Island. Literature Cited Auffenberg, Walter. 1974. Checklist of fossil land tortoises (Tes- tudinidae). Bull. Florida State Mus., Biol. Sci. 18(3):121-251. Barbour, Thomas. 1935. A new Pseudemys from Cat Island, Ba- hamas, Occas. Pap. Boston Soc. Natur. Hist. 8:205-206. -, and Archie F. Carr. 1940. Antillean terrapins. Mem. Mus. Comp. 2001. 54331-415. - , and -. 1941. Terrapin from Grand Cayman. Proc. New England Zool. Club. 18:57-60. -, and Benjamin Shreve. 1935. Concerning some Bahamian rep tiles, with notes on the fauna. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 40(5):347-366. Baur, G. 1893. Two new species of North American Testudinata. Amer. Natur. 27:675-676. Bickham, John, and Robert J. Baker. 1976. Karyotypes of some neotropical turtles. Copeia 1976(4):703-708. - , and John L. Cam. 1983. Taxonomy and phylogeny of the higher categories of cryptodiran turtles based on cladistic an- alysis of chromosomal data. Copeia 1983(4):918-932. Boulenger, George A. 1889. Catalogue of the chelonians, rhyn- chocephalians and crocodiles in the British Museum (Natural History). Taylor and Francis, London. x + 311 p. Campbell, David G. 1978. The ephemeral islands, a natural history of the Bahamas. MacMillan Co., New York. 151 p. Gmelin, Jean F. 1788-89. Caroli a Linne, System naturae per regna tria natural, secondum classes, ordines, genera, species cum characteribus differentiis, synonymis, locis. l(3): 10381 516. Gosse, P. H. 1851. A naturalist's sojourn in Jamaica. Longman, London. 508 p. Gray, John E. 1831. Synopsis Reptilium, or short descriptions of the species of reptiles. Part I. Cataphracta. Tortoises, crocodiles, and enaliosaurians. Treuttel, Wurtz, and Co., London. 85 p. Groombridge, Brian. 1982. The IUCN Amphibia-Reptilia red data book. Part I, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. 426 p. Hodsdon, L. A,, and J. F. W. Pearson. 1943. Notes on the discovery and biology of two Bahamian freshwater turtles of the genus Pseudemys. Proc. Florida Acad. Sci. 6(2):17-23. Iverson, John B. 1985. Checklist of the turtles of the world with English common names. Soc. Stud. Amphib. Rept. Herpetol. CUC. (14x1-14. - . 1986. A checklist with distribution maps of the turtles of the world. Privately printed, Paust Printing, Richmond, Indiana. 283 p. Laceptde, B. G. E. 1788. Histoire naturelle des quadrupi?des ov- ipares et des serpens. Vol. 1. Hotel de Thou, Paris. 651 p. Lynn, W. G., and C. Grant. 1940. The herpetology of Jamaica. Bull. Inst. Jamaica (2):l-48. McDowell, Samuel B. 1%. Partition of the genus CIanmys and related problems in the taxonomy of aquatic Testudinidae. Proc. Zool. Soc. London143(2):239-27 9. Mertens, Robert. 1939. Herpetologische Ergebnisse einer Reise nach der Insel Hispaniola, Westindien. Abh. Senckenberg. naturf. Ges. 449:l-84. -, and Heinz Wermuth. 1955. Die rezenten Schildkriiten, Krokodile und Briickenechsen. Zool. Zahrb. Syst. Abt. 83523- 440. Mittleman, M. B. 1947. The allocation of Testudo rugosu Shaw. Herpetologica 3(5): 173-176. Mlynarski, Marian. 1976. Testudines. In 0. Kuhn, ed., Encyclopedia of paleoherpetology, part 7. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart. 130 p. Obst, Fritz Jiirgen. 1983. Schmuckschildkroten. Die Gattung Chrysemys. A. Ziemsen Verlag, Winenberg Lutherstadt. 112 p. Parsons, Thomas S. 1960. The structure of the choanae of the Emydidae (Testudines, Testudinidae). Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 123(4):113-127. - . 1%8. Variation in the choanal structure of Recent turtles. Carradian J. Zool. 46(6):1235-1263. Pritchard, Peter C. H. 1979. Encyclopedia of turtles. T. F. H. Pub- lications, Inc., Neptune, N. J. 895 p. Schwartz, Albert. 1968. The geckos ( S p h d c t y l u s )  of the southern Bahama Islands. Ann. Camegie Mus. 39(17):227-271. - ,and R. W. Henderson. 1985. A guide to the identiflation of the amphibians and reptiles of the West Indies exclusive of Hispaniola. Milwaukee Pub. Mus. 165 p. Seidel, Michael E. 1988. Revision of the West Indian emydid turtles (Testudines). h e r .  Mus. Novitates. (2918): 1-41. - ,and M. Dale Adkins. 1987. Biochemical comparisons among West Indian Tracbemys (Emydidae: Testudines). Copeia 1987 (2):485-489. - ,and S. J. Inchiustegui. 1984. Status of the trachernyd turtles (Testudines: Emydidae) on Hispaniola. 18(4):468-479. -, and Hobart M. Smith. 1986. Chysemys, PsPseudemys, Tmche- mys (Testudies: Emydidae): Did Agassiz have it right.? Her- petologica 42(2):242-248. Shaw, George. 1802. General zoology, or systematic natural history. G. Kearsley, London. 615 p. Siebenrock, F. 1909. Synopsis der rezenten Schildkr6ten. 2001. Jahrb. Suppl. lO(3): 429-618. Stejneger, Leonhard. 1904. The herpetology of Porto Rico. Rept. U. S. Natl. Mus. 1902:553-724. Suckow, F. W. L. 1798. Anfanggrunde einer Naturgeschichte der Thiere 540 Wermuth, Heinz, and Robert Mertens. 1%1. Schildkristen, Kroko- dile, Briickeneschsen. VEB G. Fischer, Jena, GDR. 442 p. Williams, Ernest E. 1956. Pseudemys scrfpta callimttts from Ven- ezuela with a general survey of the script. series. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 115(5):145-160. Michael E. Sei&l, Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia 25701. Primary editor for this account, Carl H. Ernst. Published 15 December 1988 and Copyright 01988 by the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 

Trachemys terrapen

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Trachemys terrapen

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