Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792

Fritz, Uwe, Petzold, Alice, Kehlmaier, Christian, Kindler, Carolin, Campbell, Patrick, Hofmeyr, Margaretha D. & Branch, William R., 2014, Disentangling the Pelomedusa complex using type specimens and historical DNA (Testudines: Pelomedusidae), Zootaxa 3795 (5), pp. 501-522 : 507-509

Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792

The name Testudo galeata was erected by Schoepff (1792: p. 12) in his famous “ Historia Testudinum iconibus illustrata ”. For a long time Testudo galeata was used for helmeted terrapins, until Mertens (1937) and Loveridge (1941) pointed out that the older name Testudo subrufa should be applied. Schoepff’s original description was based on detailed unpublished notes received from two Swedish naturalists. Originally, Schoepff (1792: pp. 12–16) intended to assemble information about another terrapin species, Testudo scabra Linnaeus, 1758 , a taxon whose identity puzzled scientists for about 250 years ( Rhodin & Carr 2009).

Schoepff received from Anders Jahan Retzius (1742–1821) of Lund a detailed description and drawings of a “ Testudo scabra ” from “ India orientalis” [East India], which Retzius had kept alive for two years. Schoepff (1792) published Retzius’ description (pp. 13–14) and a coloured etching of the terrapin as figure 1 in plate III. Shown under the name “ Test. scabra Retz. ”, it is clearly a juvenile Pelomedusa subrufa ( Fig. 3 , top), and “Prof. D. Swartz” (probably to be identified with Olof Peter Swartz, 1760–1818) of Stockholm wrote to Schoepff that a very similar specimen in spirit is present in the Cabinet of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. Schoepff (1792: p. 16) concluded that these two terrapins could represent a new species, for which he proposed the name Testudo galeata . The eponymous character ( galeata, Latin = helmeted) of this putative new species is its helmet-like head scalation. The two terrapins from Lund and Stockholm have to be regarded as syntypes of Testudo galeata .

In the collection of the Biological Museum of Lund University there is still extant a single alcohol-preserved Pelomedusa specimen, bearing the catalogue number ZMUL 6481 ( Fig. 3 , bottom). Retzius donated this terrapin as “ Testudo scabra ” in 1811 to the Lund Museum, together with a large collection of other specimens (L. Lundqvist, pers. comm.). We conclude that ZMUL 6481, which originates evidently from Retzius, has to be identified with the syntype described in detail in Schoepff (1792: pp. 13–14). The size of ZMUL 6481 (straight carapacial length 5.84 cm, width 4.97 cm) approximately matches the measurements given in Schoepff (1792: p. 13) with 2 ½ and 2 Prussian inches (1 Prussian inch = 2.615 cm), especially when it is considered that Retzius could have measured over the curve of the carapace. However, the shell shape of ZMUL 6481 is a bit too oval compared to Schoepff’s figure ( Fig. 3 , top). Retzius’ two original drawings of the terrapin and part of his letter have survived among Schoepff’s legacy, and are now kept in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin ( Fig. 3 , top). The original drawings are very rough, but they illustrate a shell shape that agrees better with ZMUL 6481 than with Schoepff’s (1792) published figure. In comparison it appears that Schoepff’s figure is somewhat idealized. The coloration of the syntype is much faded due to the age of the specimen and allows no direct comparison with the description in Schoepff (1792).

In the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, there are two old Pelomedusa specimens catalogued as one lot (NRM 7043), which were once part of the collection of Charles de Geer (1720–1778). These specimens were transferred by his widow to the collection of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1778. The two alcohol-preserved terrapins are in quite bad condition with many shell scutes missing. They are the only helmeted terrapins which were present in the collection when Swartz corresponded with Schoepff, so that one of these specimens is most likely the second syntype (E. Åhlander, pers. comm.). However, as it cannot be unambiguously identified, we choose to designate hereby the Lund specimen as lectotype of Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792 .

Hewitt (1935: p. 326) corrected the type locality “ India orientalis” of Testudo galeata to the environs of Cape Town (and not Cape Flats as thought by Mertens 1937: p. 139, later repeated by Loveridge 1941: p. 470). This makes sense as the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in 1652 established an outpost near the Cape of Good Hope for provisioning their ships coming from East India. This outpost, later becoming the Cape Colony and finally Cape Town, was a supplier of early natural history specimens for Europe ( Wren-Sargent 1999; Bauer & Günther 2013; Bauer & Wahlgren 2013), and such specimens might have been mixed up or confused with materials coming from East India. Gray (1831: p. 40) wrote exactly in this spirit about helmeted terrapins “I have never seen this tortoise from India, but being brought from the Cape by the Indian ships, they, as well as many other Cape animals, are often called Indian.” Also the morphology of the Lund type, which has pectoral scutes in broad midline contact, is typical for South African terrapins ( Hewitt 1935: p. 325; unpubl. observ.), and is thus in agreement with an origin near Cape Town. Therefore, we accept Hewitt’s type locality designation and identify Testudo galeata with Pelomedusa lineage IX, distributed throughout South Africa ( Vargas-Ramírez et al. 2010).

Two fresh Pelomedusa samples collected close to the Cape of Good Hope (MTD T 5484, Swellendam District; MTD T 5897, Chelance; Table S1) can be regarded as topotypes of Testudo galeata . As expected, their DNA sequences ( Vargas-Ramírez et al. 2010; this study) are assigned with high support to lineage IX in phylogenetic analyses ( Fig. 1 ).

“Die Skizze der T. scabra welche ein Student gemacht hat, lege ich so fehlerhaft sie auch ist bey, indess aus Nr. 1 forma scutellorum u. aus Nr. 2 die Gestalt des Kopfes und der Hinterfüsse wohl zu ersehen ist. Dass meine Testudo die wahre scabra L. ist, dessen bin ich gewiss, ob er [meant is Linnaeus] gleich sagt [illegible] er hat aber ganz gewiss Nr. 73 u. 74 [illegible] completirt, wie das oft der Fall ist.―Rezius” [sic].

English translation: “I enclose the drawing of the T. scabra made by a student, as flawed as it is, since no. 1 shows well the shape of the scutes and no. 2 the shape of the head and of the hind legs. I am sure that my Testudo is the true scabra L., even though he [meant is Linnaeus] says [illegible] he has surely no. 73 and 74 [illegible] completed, as this is often the case.―Rezius” [sic].

Top, right: reproduction of figure 1, plate III from Schoepff (1792) showing “ Test. scabra Retz. ”.

Bottom: Dorsal and ventral view of the lectotype of Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792 ( ZMUL 6481 , straight carapacial length 5.84 cm). Scale bar, 3 cm. Photos: L. Lundqvist .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum Likelihood tree for Pelomedusa, based on 1848 bp of mitochondrial DNA (12S, cyt b, ND4+tRNAs), rooted with Pelusios sinuatus. The tree topology completely matches the one inferred by Bayesian analyses. Numbers along nodes indicate bootstrap support and Bayesian posterior probabilities greater than 50 or 0.95, respectively (not shown for some terminal clades with short branches). Sample codes are voucher numbers; see Table S1 for explanation. Name-bearing types (red) and paralectotypes or topotypic samples (blue) highlighted. On the right, mitochondrial lineages of Vargas-Ramírez et al. (2010) indicated. No topotypic material of Pelomedusa galeata orangensis Hewitt, 1935 could be sequenced. However, the lost holotype is thought to come from the vicinity of Kimberley (South Africa) and all South African samples belong to lineage IX, so it can be concluded that Pelomedusa galeata orangensis represents the same lineage. Inset: Helmeted terrapin from the Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa. Photo: M. Gregorič.

FIGURE 3. Top, left: Folio from Schoepff’s legacy (Museum für Naturkunde zu Berlin, Historische Bild- und Schriftgutsammlungen, SI, Nachl. Schoepff II) consisting of the drawings provided by Retzius and an imprint of the resultant etching. Retzius’ hand-written German text reads: