Pelomedusa neumanni, Petzold & Vargas-Ramírez & Kehlmaier & Vamberger & Branch & Preez & Hofmeyr & Meyer & Schleicher & Široký & Fritz, 2014

Petzold, Alice, Vargas-Ramírez, Mario, Kehlmaier, Christian, Vamberger, Melita, Branch, William R., Preez, Louis Du, Hofmeyr, Margaretha D., Meyer, Leon, Schleicher, Alfred, Široký, Pavel & Fritz, Uwe, 2014, A revision of African helmeted terrapins (Testudines: Pelomedusidae: Pelomedusa), with descriptions of six new species, Zootaxa 3795 (5), pp. 523-548 : 537-539

Pelomedusa neumanni sp. nov.

Diagnosis: Medium-sized helmeted terrapins with a known maximum straight carapacial length of 19.4 cm. Pectoral scutes rectangular with wide midseam contact. One large undivided temporal head scale. Two small barbels under chin. Colouration variable; specimens with light horn-coloured carapace and completely yellow plastron and individuals with brownish plastron known to occur; soft parts ventrally lighter than dorsally. Pelomedusa neumanni differs from all other Pelomedusa species except possibly P. gehafie , P. kobe and candidate species B (in which the respective character states are unknown) by the presence of thymine (T) instead of cytosine (C) at position 57, by the presence of thymine (T) instead of cytosine (C) or guanine (G) at position 349, and by the presence of adenine (A) instead of cytosine (C) or guanine (G) at position 353 of the 360-bp-long reference alignment of the 12S rRNA gene (Supporting Information). Pelomedusa neumanni differs from P. gehafie , P. kobe and candidate species B by the presence of thymine (T) instead of cytosine (C) at position 116, by the presence of adenine (A) or thymine (T) instead of cytosine (C) or guanine (G) at position 147, and by the presence of adenine (A) instead of guanine (G) at position 223. In addition, P. neumanni differs from P. gehafie by the presence of adenine (A) instead of guanine (G) at position 256, by the presence of cytosine (C) instead of adenine (A) at position 268, and by the presence of cytosine (C) instead of thymine (T) at position 345. Pelomedusa neumanni differs from P. kobe by the presence of cytosine (C) instead of thymine (T) at position 298. Pelomedusa neumanni differs from candidate species B by the presence of cytosine (C) instead of thymine (T) at positions 103, 268 and 274, by the presence of thymine (T) instead of cytosine (C) at positions 109, 125, 152, 287 and 326, by the presence of cytosine (C) instead of adenine (A) at positions 122, 166 and 303, by a gap instead of thymine (T) at positions 126 and 168, by the presence of adenine (A) instead of guanine (G) at positions 148, 154, 180 and 223, and by the presence of thymine (T) instead of adenine (A) at position 302.

Holotype: National Museum Prague ( NMP6 V 74974 , adult male, Kakamega, Kenya, N0°17.04 E34°44.52; leg. P. Široký, 11 September 2003; Fig. 4 top).

Description of the holotype: Dry shell plus head in ethanol. Straight carapacial length 16.6 cm, plastral length 14.9 cm. Carapace wide, dark brown, in dorsal view with pronounced waist. Epidermal scutes of vertebral 2–4 missing, anterior carapacial margin slightly mutilated. Plastron dark coloured; pectoral scutes with midseam contact. Head dorsally dark coloured; throat yellowish, two small barbels under chin.

Paratypes: Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin ( ZMB 28356, hatchling, Mangara River , Manyara, Tanzania); Naturhistorisches Museum Wien ( NMW 24452, male, Lake Victoria ); Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig , Bonn ( ZFMK 81951 , hatchling, Kakamega Forest , Kenya) .

Derivatio nominis: We dedicate this new species to Oscar Neumann (3 September 1867 – 17 May 1946) who undertook in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries influential expeditions to East Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Neumann worked voluntarily for over 40 years in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, but was forced by the Nazi government to leave Germany in 1941.

Distribution: Kenya ( Vargas-Ramírez et al. 2010) and Tanzania (this study). The genetically verified paratype ZMB 28356, collected by Oscar Neumann in the late 19 th century in present-day Tanzania, provides evidence for the occurrence of P. neumanni in close proximity to genetically verified records of P. kobe and P. subrufa .

Remarks: Pelomedusa neumanni corresponds to mtDNA lineage V of Vargas-Ramírez et al. (2010). According to our phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA sequences, P. neumanni belongs to the northern species group of Pelomedusa . Pelomedusa neumanni is phylogenetically most closely related to P. gehafie and P. kobe . However, the sister group relationships within the clade comprising these three species are not well resolved ( Fig. 1 ).

The ranges of P. neumanni , P. kobe and P. subrufa abut or overlap in the East African savannah. To avoid taxonomic misidentifications, we included only genetically verified museum specimens in our type series. However, it should be noted that all 18 specimens from Kenya we studied have pectoral scutes in wide midline contact.

For the monogenean flatworm Polystomoides chabaudi possibly parasitizing Pelomedusa neumanni , see below under P. subrufa sensu stricto.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum Likelihood tree for helmeted terrapins (Pelomedusa spp.) using 1848 bp of mitochondrial DNA (12S, cyt b, ND4+tRNAs), rooted with Pelusios sinuatus. Terminal clades collapsed to cartoons. The topology of the Bayesian 50% majority rule consensus tree was identical. Numbers along branches indicate bootstrap support and clade support under BI (posterior probabilities) greater than 50 or 0.95, respectively. Asterisks represent maximum support under both methods. Colours and symbol correspond to the map (Fig. 2). On the right, proposed species names indicated; in brackets, mtDNA lineages. For clade membership of individual samples, see Table S1. The questionable sample MTD T 5484 from Swellendam District (Western Cape), South Africa, is highlighted in red (see text). The shown terrapins are Pelomedusa neumanni (top; Kakamega, Kenya) and P. galeata (bottom; Port Elizabeth, South Africa—photos: H. Prokop and W.R. Branch).

FIGURE 4. Dorsal and ventral aspects of the holotype of Pelomedusa neumanni sp. nov. (NMP6V 74974, adult male, Kakamega, Kenya; top) and of Pelomedusa schweinfurthi sp. nov. (SMF 56161, female, Liria, Central Equatoria, South Sudan; bottom). Scale bars, 3 cm. Photos: P. Široký and E. Morawa.