The Western New Guinea stream turtle or New Guinea snapping turtle (''Elseya novaeguineae'') is a species of freshwater

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

in the

Chelidae Chelidae is one of three living families of the turtle suborder Pleurodira, and are commonly called Austro-South American side-neck turtles. The family is distributed in Australia, New Guinea, parts of Indonesia, and throughout most of South Amer ...

family. It is found in the

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...

and the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the Western New Guinea region, opposite to and to the south of the Bird's Head Peninsula. To the west lies ...

west of

Cenderawasih Bay Cenderawasih Bay ( id, Teluk Cenderawasih, "Bird of Paradise Bay"), also known as Sarera Bay ( id, Teluk Sarera) and formerly Geelvink Bay ( nl, Geelvinkbaai), is a large bay in northern Province of Papua, Central Papua and West Papua, New Guine ...

, and on the island of

Waigeo Waigeo is an island in Southwest Papua province of eastern Indonesia. The island is also known as Amberi, or Waigiu. It is the largest of the four main islands in the Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago loc ...

of West Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

.Turtle Taxonomy Working Group hodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., Bour, R. Fritz, U., Georges, A., Shaffer, H.B., and van Dijk, P.P. 2017
Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status (8th Ed.)
In: Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., van Dijk, P.P., Saumure, R.A., Buhlmann, K.A., Pritchard, P.C.H., and Mittermeier, R.A. (Eds.). ''Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises: A Compilation Project of the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group''. Chelonian Research Monographs 7:1–292. .

Taxonomy

This species was recently moved from ''Elseya'' to ''

Myuchelys The ''Myuchelys'' is a genus of turtles, the Australian saw-shelled turtles, in the family Chelidae and subfamily Chelodininae. They inhabit the headwaters and tributaries of rivers within their range and this led to the name ''Myuchelys'', whic ...

'' by Georges and Thomson (2010);Georges, A. & Thomson, S. 2010
Diversity of Australasian freshwater turtles, with an annotated synonymy and keys to species.
Zootaxa 2496: 1–37. however, this was later deemed in error by the authors and was argued against by Rhodin et al., (2010)Anders G.J. Rhodin, Peter Paul van Dijk, John B. Iverson, and H. Bradley Shaffer. 2010
Turtles of the World, 2010 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status
/ref> with the support of the authors. Hence it has been returned to ''Elseya''. The species '' Elseya schultzei'' has also long been seen as synonymous with this species; however, recent studies have shown this to be incorrect. Therefore, that species was recently removed from synonymy, further revision of the New Guinea ''Elseya'' the species has been made type species for a new subgenus ('' Hanwarachelys'') which also contains '' Elseya schultzei'' and '' Elseya rhodini''.

Synonymy

*''Platemys novaeguineae'' (Meyer 1871:128) **''Emydura novaeguineae'' Boulenger 1888:450 **''Elseya novaeguineae'' Goode 1967:ix **''Elseya latisternum novaeguineae'' Blackmore 1969:282 **''Elseya novaeguinea'' Burbidge et al. 1974:393 ( ex-errore) **''Elseya dentata novaeguineae'' Obst 1985:223 **''Elseya (Hanwarachelys) novaeguineae'' (restricted, Thomson et al. 2015)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1996342 Elseya (Hanwarachelys) Elseya Reptiles described in 1874 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Endemic fauna of New Guinea Turtles of New Guinea

Taxonomy

Synonymy

See also

References