Cuora picturata
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| South vietnamese box turtle | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 Southern Vietnamese Box Turtle
Cuora (galbinifrons) picturata |
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| Cuora galbinifrons picturata Lehr, Fritz & Obst, 1998 |
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Cistoclemmys picturata Cuora galbinifrons picturata |
The Southern Vietnamese Box turtle (Cuora picturata) is endemic to the southern mountainous regions of Vietnam possibly also occurring in extreme eastern Cambodia and southern Laos. This species was initially described as a subspecies of Cuora galbinifrons but was shown to be genetically distinct (Stuart & Parham, 2004). This is the same for Cuora galbinifrons bourreti which however is much closer related to Cuora galbinifrons regarding Osteology, Genetics and Morphology than is Cuora picturata to either one. Thus this variety probably truly deserved species status. This species has the highest domed carapace of all Cuora species, the shape resembling a Conquistator helmet. While the head coloration of Cuora galbinifrons subspecies is highly variable even in different populations, this is ot the case with C.picturata, where the head is always yellow with a fine greyish reticulation.
[edit] References
Lehr, E., Fritz, U., Obst, F.J., 1998. Die Unterarten von Cuora galbinifrons Bourret, 1939. Zool. Abh. Mus. Tierk. Dresden, 50: 77-97.
Stuart, B.L., Parham, J.F., 2004. Molecular phylogeny of the critically endangered Indochinese box turtle (Cuora galbinifrons). Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 31: 164-177.
