Philippen's striped turtle, ''"Mauremys" philippeni'', has recently shown to be an
intergeneric hybrid
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in ...
(Stuart & Parham, 2006) between a male ''
Mauremys sinensis
The Chinese stripe-necked turtle (''Mauremys sinensis'') or golden thread turtle, is a species of turtle in the family Geoemydidae.
Like many other Geoemydidae, this species hybridizes vigorously with related and not-so-closely related members ...
'' and a female ''
Cuora trifasciata''.
The "
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...
" is known only from a handful of specimens (mainly the type series), said to originate from
Hainan
Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slight ...
, but all acquired from a pet trader in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
.
Etymology
The
specific name, ''phillipeni'', is in honor of German
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning " reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and r ...
Hans-Dieter Phillipen (born 1957).
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Ocadia philippeni'', p. 206).]
References
External links
*
Reptiles of China
Mauremys
Reptiles described in 1992
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
Hybrid animals
Intergeneric hybrids
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