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  ©Jan Matiaska, &
  Scott Thomson,
   2003-2006




A new species of Chelodina (Testudines: Pleurodira: Chelidae) from northern Australia.

William P. McCord(1) and Scott A. Thomson(2)

1. East Fishkill Animal Hospital, 285 Route 82, Hopewell Junction, New York, 12533, USA.
2. Applied Ecology Research Group and CRC for Freshwater Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia

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ABSTRACT.- A new species of long-necked turtle from the Chelodina longicollis group is described from northern Australia; the species Chelodina novaeguineae is restricted to southern New Guinea. The new species differs from its New Guinea counterpart in being a larger species with a broader shell and wider plastron, the skull having paired premaxillae and the narrower parietal ridge, having a single frontal bone posteriorally partially dividing the parietals, in the form and relationship to the perygoids of the vomer and a narrower crista paroccipitalis.



 

     The taxonomy of Australian Chelid turtles has only recently received the attention it deserves. Within the genus Elseya, eight new species have been identified, of which four are now described (Georges & Adams, 1992; 1996; Thomson, et al., 1997b); Cann, 1997a,b). In addition one new species of Emydura has been described and a large group of invalid taxa identified (Georges & Adams, 1996; Cann, 1997c). At the generic level inconsistencies between the accepted taxonomy and recent phylogenies have been demonstrated, such as the paraphyly of the genus Elseya (Georges & Adams, 1992; 1996).

     Long-necked turtles of the genus Chelodina occur in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia (Irian Jaya and Roti Island) with no specimens, fossil or otherwise, found outside these current regions (Rhodin, 1994a; Georges & Thomson, 2002). The genus has been poorly studied taxonomically with recent work focusing in New Guinea (Phillipen and Grossman, 1990; Rhodin, 1994a,b) rather than Australia. The genus is generally recognised to consist of two distinctive groups known as Chelodina subgeneric group “A” (Chelodina longicollis group) and Chelodina subgeneric group “B” (Chelodina expansa group) (Goode, 1967; Burbidge et al., 1974; Rhodin, 1994a,b; Georges et al., 1998; Thomson, 2000). The Chelodina longicollis group currently contains the species: C. longicollis, C. mccordi, C. novaeguineae, C. oblonga, C. pritchardi, C. reimanni and C. steindachneri.

 

The Chelodina expansa group contains: C. expansa, C. burrungandjii, C. parkeri, C. rugosa and C. seibenrocki (Rhodin, 1994a,b; Seddon et al., 1997; Thomson et al., 2000; Georges et al., 2002). Chelodina rankini (Wells & Wellington, 1985), from N.E. Queensland may also be added to the C. longicollis group; however, the original description of Chelodina rankini contains no diagnosis, does not refer to a published diagnosis that claims to distinguish the species and refers only to plates published by others. This is not a valid means of obtaining a diagnosis and none of the other literature cited “purports to give characters differentiating the taxon.” We therefore consider the name C. rankini as a nomen nudum under Article 13a (i) and (ii) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. It is therefore an unavailable name and will not be used in this paper. The position of C. oblonga (see Chelodina colliei, Thomson, 2000) in this arrangement is controversial. It has been placed in sub-generic group "C" by its self (Burbidge et al., 1974) and into the C. expansa group (Goode, 1967) in the past. Recent evidence from allozyme electrophoresis (Georges and Adams, 1992; Georges et al., 2002) and mtDNA sequence data (Seddon et al., 1997) places it as the sister of the Chelodina longicollis group, a position supported by recent morphological analysis (Thomson et al., 1997a; Thomson, 2000, Georges and Thomson, 2002).


 

 

 

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