North American Recent Soft-Shelled Turtles (Family Trionychidae)Webb, Robert G. (Robert Gravem)
Science
North American Recent Soft-Shelled Turtles (Family Trionychidae)
Webb, Robert G. (Robert Gravem)
Soft-shelled turtles
_Range._--Southcentral Texas in the drainage systems of the Nueces and
Guadalupe-San Antonio rivers; the Colorado River drainage in Texas is
inhabited by a population that more closely resembles _guadalupensis_
than _pallidus_. See comments under subsection entitled "Remarks" and
Fig. 19.
_Diagnosis._--Juvenal pattern of white dots that are conspicuous on
anterior half of carapace, and usually as large as those on posterior
half; white dots, sometimes 3 millimeters in diameter, encircled with
blackish ocelli in adult males.
_Description._--Plastral length of smallest hatchling, 3.3 centimeters
(ANSP 16717); of largest male, 13.5 centimeters (TU 10162); of largest
female, 22.0 centimeters (TU 10160).
Hatchlings having white dots on anterior half of carapace; white dots
anteriorly nearly as large as those posteriorly, encircled with
blackish ocelli, and conspicuous on dark background (ANSP 16717, Pl.
41; USNM 78515-16; Stebbins, 1954:181, Pl. 26B), or smaller than those
posteriorly, not encircled with dusky ocelli, and inconspicuous on
pale background (TNHC 1446); pale rim of carapace less than four times
as wide posteriorly as laterally.
Adult males resembling holotype; size of white tubercles on carapace
variable; most, if not all, tubercles surrounded by narrow blackish
ocelli, or parts thereof; largest white tubercles or dots in most
specimens exceeding one millimeter and in some specimens three
millimeters in diameter (TU 10163); white dots often slightly elongate
(UMMZ 89917, 89920, 89926; TU 10152, 10145); juvenal pattern of white
dots seemingly more contrasting in _guadalupensis_, owing to dark
ground color of carapace, than in _pallidus_ or _emoryi_ that have
pale brown or tan carapaces; small tubercles along anterior edge of
carapace rounded, obtuse, wartlike, never conical; sharp tips often
lacking (TU 10153).
Large females often having whitish spots on anterior half of carapace
(TU 10160, Pl. 42, upper, right; 10142); carapace dark having
ill-defined mottled and blotched pattern; tubercles along anterior
edge of carapace low, rounded, rarely equilateral, never conical;
small blackish dots rarely on surface of carapace (UMMZ 89923).
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