Branderhorst's turtle, Branderhorst's snapping turtle
Elseya branderhorsti, also known commonly as Branderhorst's turtle and Branderhorst's snapping turtle, is a species of freshwater turtle in the family Chelidae. The species is endemic to southern New Guinea, in West Papua Indonesia and Western Province of Papua New Guinea. Until recently it has been a confusing species due to its lost holotype and its sympatry with another, undescribed, species. E. branderhorsti is currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN RedList in part due to its vulnerability to the Asian turtle trade.
The specific name, branderhorsti, is in honor of Dutch physician Bastiaan Branderhorst (born 1880).
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
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starts withE. branderhorsti is a large river turtle that can be most readily distinguished from E. rhodini, with which it is sympatric, by the following three characters: the absence of a cervical scute; the presence of a prominent head shield that does not extend down the parietal arch to the tympanum; and by the presence of a distinctive alveolar ridge. As an adult it has a very large, broadly oval shell, often greater than 400 mm (16 inches) in straight carapace length, that is dark brown to black on the carapace and cream on the plastron. The iris is indistinct giving it the appearance of no distinctive features in the eye, often referred to as "liquid" eyes.
The preferred natural habitat of E. branderhorsti is freshwater rivers and swamps.
