Thomson S.¹, Georges A.¹ and Limpus C.² (2006). A New Species of Freshwater Turtle in the Genus Elseya (Testudines: Chelidae) from Central Coastal Queensland, Australia. Chelonian Conservation and Biology. 5(1):74–86.

1. Applied Ecology Research Group and CRC for Freshwater Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
2. Queensland Environmental Protection Agency, PO Box 15155, City Central (Brisbane), Qld 4002 Australia

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Abstract:--In this paper, we describe a new species of freshwater turtle from the Burnett River of coastal Queensland. It is a large, predominantly herbivorous species previously regarded to belong to the widespread species Elseya dentata. It is most closely related to Elseya irwini, E. lavarackorum, an undescribed taxon from the Johnstone River of northern Queensland, and possibly E. branderhorsti from New Guinea. It can be distinguished from the above species by the combination of a robust skull that acutely narrows across the pterygoids behind the processus pterygoideus externus, a deeply furrowed head shield and underlying bone, very prominent alveolar and lingual ridges on the triturating surfaces, a serrated margin to the carapace (prominent in juveniles and persisting into early adulthood), an anterior plastron that is broad, not oval in outline, and notable irregular white or cream markings on the lateral and ventral surfaces of the head and neck of adult females, often extending down the forelimbs. The new species inhabits the coastal Mary, Burnett, Fitzroy-Dawson, and associated smaller drainages of southeastern Queensland.
Keywords.-- Reptilia; Testudines; Chelidae; Elseya sp. nov.; turtle; side-neck turtle; taxonomy; systematics; Pleurodira; Australia

Introduction  

      The freshwater turtle fauna of the Australasian region is dominated by a single family, Chelidae, found elsewhere only in South America. The taxonomy of Australasian chelids is poorly known, and many species have only recently been described. Those described in the last decade include Chelodina pritchardi (Rhodin 1994a) from New Guinea, C. mccordi (Rhodin 1994b) from the island of Roti in Indonesia, C. burrungandjii (Thomson et al. 2000) from Arnhem Land, Elusor macrurus (Cann and Legler 1994) from the Mary River in southeastern Queensland, Elseya lavarackorum (White and Archer 1994) first described as a fossil specimen from Riversleigh in Queensland but later established as extant (Thomson et al. 1997), Elseya irwini (Cann 1997b) from northeastern Queensland, Elseya georgesi (Cann 1997a) from coastal New South Wales and Emydura tanybaraga (Cann 1997c) from northern Australia. Several new fossil taxa have been described, including Elseya nadibajagu (Thomson and Mackness 1999), Birlimarr gaffneyi (Megirian and Murray 1999), Rheodytes devisi (Thomson 2000), and Chelodina alanrixi (Lapparent de Broin and Molnar 2001).

Recent surveys using allozyme electrophoresis (Georges and Adams 1992, 1996; Georges et al. 2002) have established that many more extant species await description. Species of the genus Elseya fall into two distinct clades that are in a paraphyletic arrangement, their common ancestor having Emydura among its descendants (Georges and Adams 1992). The first of these clades is referred to as the E. latisternum generic group and comprises E. latisternum, E. georgesi, E. purvisi, and E. belli, with the second clade referred to as the E. dentata generic group and comprises the type species for the genus E. dentata, together with E. branderhorsti, E. novaeguineae, E. schultzei, E. irwini, and E. lavarackorum (Georges and Adams 1992; Thomson et al. 1997). To resolve this paraphyly, it is anticipated that these two generic groups will one day be recognized as separate genera.

      The E. dentata generic group, characterized by the presence of an alveolar ridge on the triturating surfaces of the jaw, contains large river turtles distributed from the Mary River of southeastern Queensland to the Fitzroy River of northern Western Australia. The Australian forms were once regarded as a single widespread species, E. dentata, but electrophoresis revealed a series of highly divergent allopatric forms. Each was regarded by Georges and Adams (1996) as a distinct species. In this paper, we provide a formal description for one of these species from the rivers of central coastal Queensland (Fig. 1).

      We examined all available specimens of Elseya from the Australian Museum (AM), the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory (NTM), The Queensland Museum (QM), the Western Australian Museum (WAM), the National Wildlife Collection (ANWC), and the Natural History Museum of London (NHM). Additional specimens in the collection of J.M. Legler at the University of Utah (UU) and the senior author (UC) were also examined as part of the study. Specimens examined are listed in Appendix B. Names of skull elements follows that of Gaffney (1979); shell terminology follows that of Zangerl (1969) with modifications for costals suggested by Pritchard and Trebbau (1984). Bridge strut terminology follows that of Thomson et al. (1997) and Thomson and Mackness (1999).

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