The Western New Guinea stream turtle or New Guinea snapping turtle (''Elseya novaeguineae'') is a species of freshwater

turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...

in the

Chelidae Chelidae is one of three living families of the turtle suborder Pleurodira, and are commonly called Austro-South American side-neck turtles. The family is distributed in Australia, New Guinea, parts of Indonesia, and throughout most of South Amer ...

family. It is found in the

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: , , meaning Bird's Head in Indonesian and Dutch) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai'') is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indones ...

and the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula () is located in the Western New Guinea region. It is south of the Bird's Head Peninsula, and Bintuni Bay separates the two peninsulas. To the west lies the Sebakor Bay and to the south Kamrau Bay. On the southeast Arguni ...

west of

Cenderawasih Bay Cenderawasih Bay (, "Bird of Paradise Bay"), also known as Sarera Bay () and formerly Geelvink Bay (), is a large bay in northern Province of Papua, Central Papua and West Papua, New Guinea, Indonesia. Geography ''Cenderawasih Bay'' is a lar ...

, and on the island of

Waigeo Waigeo is an island in the Southwest Papua province of eastern Indonesia. The island is also known as Amberi or Waigiu. It is the largest of the four main islands in the Raja Ampat Islands archipelago, between Halmahera and about to the nort ...

of West Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

.Turtle Taxonomy Working Group hodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., Bour, R. Fritz, U., Georges, A., Shaffer, H.B., and van Dijk, P.P. 2017
Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status (8th Ed.)
In: Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., van Dijk, P.P., Saumure, R.A., Buhlmann, K.A., Pritchard, P.C.H., and Mittermeier, R.A. (Eds.). ''Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises: A Compilation Project of the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group''. Chelonian Research Monographs 7:1–292. .

Taxonomy

This species was recently moved from ''Elseya'' to ''

Myuchelys The ''Myuchelys'' is a genus of turtles, the Australian saw-shelled turtles, in the family Chelidae and subfamily Chelodininae. They inhabit the headwaters and tributaries of rivers within their range and this led to the name ''Myuchelys'', whic ...

'' by Georges and Thomson (2010);Georges, A. & Thomson, S. 2010
Diversity of Australasian freshwater turtles, with an annotated synonymy and keys to species.
Zootaxa 2496: 1–37. however, this was later deemed in error by the authors and was argued against by Rhodin et al., (2010)Anders G.J. Rhodin, Peter Paul van Dijk, John B. Iverson, and H. Bradley Shaffer. 2010
Turtles of the World, 2010 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status
/ref> with the support of the authors. Hence it has been returned to ''Elseya''. The species '' Elseya schultzei'' has also long been seen as synonymous with this species; however, recent studies have shown this to be incorrect. Therefore, that species was recently removed from synonymy, further revision of the New Guinea ''Elseya'' the species has been made type species for a new subgenus ('' Hanwarachelys'') which also contains '' Elseya schultzei'' and '' Elseya rhodini''.

Synonymy

*''Platemys novaeguineae'' (Meyer 1871:128) **''Emydura novaeguineae'' Boulenger 1888:450 **''Elseya novaeguineae'' Goode 1967:ix **''Elseya latisternum novaeguineae'' Blackmore 1969:282 **''Elseya novaeguinea'' Burbidge et al. 1974:393 ( ex-errore) **''Elseya dentata novaeguineae'' Obst 1985:223 **''Elseya (Hanwarachelys) novaeguineae'' (restricted, Thomson et al. 2015)

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1996342 Elseya (Hanwarachelys) Elseya Reptiles described in 1874 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Endemic fauna of New Guinea Turtles of New Guinea

Taxonomy

Synonymy

See also

References