Acanthochelys Explained

Acanthochelys is a genus of turtles, the spiny swamp turtles, in the family Chelidae, subfamily Chelinae, found in South America. Until recently, the species of this genus were considered to be members of the genus Platemys, but were moved to the resurrected genus originally described by Gray (1873) based on the type species by monotypy Acanthochelys spixii.^[1]

Taxonomy

Current nomenclature for this genus follows that of van Dijk et al. (2012):^[2]

• Big-headed pantanal swamp turtle (A. macrocephala Rhodin, Mittermeier, and McMorris 1984)^[3]
• Chaco side-necked turtle (A. pallidipectoris Freiberg 1945)^[4]
• Brazilian radiolated swamp turtle (A. radiolata Mikan 1820)^[5]
• Black spine-neck swamp turtle (A. spixii Duméril and Bibron 1835)^[6]

Notes and References

1. Iverson, J. B. 1992. A Revised Checklist with Distribution Maps of the Turtles of the World. Privately Printed, Richmond: Indiana. 364pp.
2. Peter Paul van Dijk, John B. Iverson, H. Bradley Shaffer, Roger Bour, and Anders G.J. Rhodin. 2012. Turtles of the World, 2012 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status. Chelonian Research Monographs No. 5, pp. 000.243–000.328.
3. Rhodin, Anders G.J., Mittermeier, Russell A., and McMorris, J. Robert. 1984. Platemys macrocephala, a new species of chelid turtle from central Bolivia and the Pantanal region of Brazil. Herpetologica 40(1):38–46.
4. Freiberg, Marcos A. 1945. Una nueva especie de tortuga del genero Platemys Wagler. Physis 20:19–23.
5. Mikan, Johann Christian. 1820. Delectus Florae et Faunae Brasiliensis. Fasciculus Primus. Vindobonae: 6 pp., 6 pls.
6. Duméril, André Marie Constant and Bibron, Gabriel. 1835. Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complète des Reptiles. Tome Second. Paris: Roret, 680 pp.