McCord's box turtle (''Cuora mccordi'') is a species of turtle in the family Geoemydidae. The species is native to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Etymology

The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''mccordi'', is in honor of American veterinarian William Patrick McCord (born 1950).Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael 2011. ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Cuora mccordi'', p. 172).

Taxonomy

Originally described by American herpetologist Carl Henry Ernst in 1988 from a specimen obtained from the Chinese pet trade, ''C. mccordi'' lacked geographic range data for 19 years until Chinese herpetologist

Ting Zhou Ting may refer to: Politics and government * Thing (assembly) or ting, a historical Scandinavian governing assembly * Ting (administrative unit) (亭), an administrative unit in China during the Qin and Han Dynasties * Ting (廳,厅), an administr ...

et al. (2007) were able to report it from the wild.

Geographic range

McCord's box turtle is endemic to central

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

province, China.

Conservation status

''C. mccordi'' is one of the most endangered Chinese endemic turtle species, highly sought after for traditional Chinese medicine and by turtle hobbyists. Cuora mccordi ventral

Description

Once thought to reach only straight

carapace A carapace is a Dorsum (biology), dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tor ...

length, specimens of McCord's box turtle of up to straight carapace length are known now.

References

Bibliography

*ERNST CH (1988). "''Cuora mccordi'', a new Chinese box turtle from Guangxi Province". ''Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington'' 101: 466-470. *FRITZ U, HAVAŠ P (2007)
"Checklist of Chelonians of the World"
''Vertebrate Zoology'' 57 (2): 217. *ZHOU T (2007a). "A survey of captive population dynamics for six endemic Chinese Box Turtle species". ''Sichuan Journal of Zoology, Chengdu'' 26 (2): 448-450. *ZHOU T, LI P-P (2007). "Chelonian species diversity and current status in China". ''Sichuan Journal of Zoology'' 26 (2): 464-467. (in Chinese) *ZHOU T (2007b). "Endemic Chinese box turtles". ''China Nature'' (2): 20-22. (in Chinese) *ZHOU T, BLANCK T, McCORD WP, LI P-P (2008)
"Tracking ''Cuora mccordi'' (Ernst, 1988); the first record of its natural habitat; a re-description; with data on captive populations and its vulnerability"
''Hamadryad'' 32 (1): 46-58. {{Taxonbar, from=Q301454 Cuora Endemic fauna of Guangxi Reptiles of China Reptiles described in 1988 Critically endangered fauna of China