Brook turtles

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Brook turtles
Eastern Mediterranean brook turtle (Mauremys rivulata) (South Crete)

Eastern Mediterranean brook turtle ( Mauremys rivulata ) (South Crete )

Systematics
without rank: Sauropsida
Order : Turtles (Testudinata)
Subordination : Halsberger tortoises (Cryptodira)
Family : Old World pond turtles (Geoemydidae)
Subfamily : Geoemydinae
Genre : Brook turtles
Scientific name
Mauremys
Gray , 1869
Blue-eyed Moorish brook turtle ( Mauremys leprosa )
Southern Morocco

The brook turtles ( Mauremys ) are a genus of Old World pond turtles that are native to various species from the Mediterranean to East Asia and Japan . Which individual species belong to this genus has not yet been conclusively clarified. The Annam brook turtle and the yellow pond turtle , both of which are native to Asia, are sometimes placed in the genus Asiatic water turtles ( Cathaiemys ).

The brook turtles often stay in stagnant waters and on land near the waters, but they get their German name from their occurrence in rather shallow, slow-flowing streams. You can swim well.

features

The species of brook turtles are between 18 cm and 21 cm tall (females), the males are smaller and between 11 cm and 13.5 cm tall.

distribution

The Moorish brook turtle ( Mauremys leprosa ), also known as the “Spanish water turtle”, is at home in the western Mediterranean region from Portugal and Spain via North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) to West Africa (Senegal and Niger).

The Balkan Pond Turtle ( Mauremys rivulata ) earlier than subspecies of the Caspian terrapin ( Mauremys caspica considered), lives in the area of the eastern Mediterranean countries of Southeastern Europe and Greece over the southern and western Turkey to Lebanon and Israel and Syria. They can also be found on the islands of Cyprus and Crete .

Further to the east, and in Inner Anatolia (north of the Taurus Mountains ), the range of the Caspian brook turtle follows. It covers the southwestern parts of the former Soviet Union between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea through central and eastern Turkey to Iran .

The Japanese pond turtle ( Mauremys japonica ) inhabits the main Japanese islands of Honshu, Shikodu and Kyushu with a few small islands in front of them.

Systematics

For a long time, the genus of the brook turtles was considered a prime example of an east-west division due to ice age extinctions. The ice age in the Pleistocene would have left this view, according to a gap in the coverage area between the Mediterranean species and the sister species in East Asia. However, modern molecular genetic methods have shown that the splitting must have taken place much earlier. It was also discovered that the genus paraphyletic , since the East Asian turtle species Chinemys and Ocadia , which until then yet another subfamily were assigned to the Geoemydidae, must be made also in the relationship of the terrapins. The sister genus of this group are the hinged turtles ( Cuora ).

The description of two apparently new Mauremys species by the Americans Pritchard and Iverson proved that the barriers to crossing even between these species classified as different genera are not high . They found the turtles in Chinese markets, where many different species are on sale, and described them as Mauremys iversoni and Mauremys pritchardi . Investigations of the mitochondrial genetic material at the Tierkundemuseum in Dresden showed that both “species” were hybrids , i.e. the results of crossings of two geographically widely separated species. In Mauremys iversoni , the Chinese box turtle or Chinese three- lined hinge turtle ( Cuora trifasciata ) could be identified as the maternal parent species and the yellow brook turtle ( Mauremys mutica ) as the paternal parent species . Mauremys pritchardi was created by crossing the yellow brook turtle as maternal parent species with the Chinese three- keeled turtle ( Chinemys reevesii ).

The West Caspian tortoise ( Mauremys rivulata ) and the Caspian brook tortoise ( Mauremys caspica ) also form hybrids upon direct contact. In nature, this is the case where their otherwise separate areas of distribution border one another, i.e. in south-east Turkey and in northern Syria, and in north-western Turkey. A hybrid population in the village of Gaziler in Bilecik Province has been confirmed by genetic testing.

species

Hybrids:

  • Iverson's brook tortoise ( "Mauremys" × iversoni Pritchard & McCord, 1991) (hybrid of Cuora trifasciata & Mauremys mutica )
  • Pritchard's brook tortoise ( "Mauremys" × pritchardi McCord, 1997) (hybrid of Mauremys mutica & Mauremys reevesii )
  • Guangxi striped turtle ( "Ocadia" × glyphistoma McCord & Iverson, 1994) (hybrid of Mauremys sinensis & Mauremys annamensis )
  • Philippens striped turtle ( "Ocadia" × philippeni McCord & Iverson, 1992) (hybrid of Mauremys sinensis & Cuora trifasciata )

proof

literature

  • M. Honda, Y. Yasukawa, H. Ota: Phylogeny of the Eurasian freshwater turtles of the genus Mauremys Gray 1869 (Testudines), with special reference to a close affinity of Mauremys japonica with Chinemys reevesii. In: Journal of Zoological Systematics & Evolutionary Research. Vol. 40, No. 4, 2002, ISSN  0947-5745 , pp. 195-200, doi : 10.1046 / j.1439-0469.2002.00176.x .
  • Dana Barth, Detlef Bernhard, Guido Fritzsch, Uwe Fritz: The freshwater turtle genus Mauremys (Testudines, Geoemydidae) - a textbook example of an east-west disjunction or a taxonomic misconcept? In: Zoologica Scripta. Vol. 33, No. 3, 2004, ISSN  0300-3256 , pp. 213-221, doi : 10.1111 / j.0300-3256.2004.00150.x .
  • Manfred Rogner : Turtles. Biology, husbandry, reproduction. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8001-5440-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Rogner: Tortoises. Biology, husbandry, reproduction. 2008, p. 96.
  2. ↑ U.Fritz, D.Ayaz, J.Buschbom, HGKami, LFMazanaeva, AAAloufi, M.Auer, L.Rifai, T.Silić, AKHundsdörfer (2008): Go east: phylogeographies of Mauremys caspica and M. rivulata - discordance of morphology, mitochondrial and nuclear genomic markers and rare hybridization. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 21: 527-540. doi : 10.1111 / j.1420-9101.2007.01485.x

Web links

Commons : Brook Turtles ( Mauremys )  - Collection of images, videos and audio files