Reptile & Amphibian Forums

... is this?

It looks like a hypomelanistic Chinese box, C. flavomarginata, should.

Any ideas?

Due to the limited view, it could be a light colored...
Cuora mccordi
Cuora aurocapitata
Cuora zhoui
Many of them inbreed both in the wild and captivity. No doubt, this is a very light colored individual.

I'll say right up front that I won't be able to ID the turtle even with a better photo, but I'd like to make a suggestion and an observation anyway:

Light colored objects tend to 'flare' even lighter and brighter when exposed to a camera's flash at close range, so it would be helpful to see a view of the turtle in question that shows the entire animal(for ID purposes) in daylight conditions, preferably with something white in the frame (say, a sheet of paper) so that interested parties can have a better idea of the overall coloration as well.

In otherwords, the turtles skin may not be quite as pale as it appears to be in that photo.

The flash was not used in either photo - the display's fluorescent light shines through in the foreground, overexposing this part of the image (use the goldfish in the foreground for color ref). How bout it?

This is how I understand it. Most taxonomists from decades past spent time identifying Asian species by collecting turtles from food markets. This presents obvious problems. They gave a name to the Chinese box turtle, Cuora flavomarginata. As they learned more about the localities from whence these turtles came, they dropped the flavo part and replaced it with mccordi and the others. Aurocapitata was also one of the originals. To my knowledge, flavomarginata is still a term used by us to refer to turtles that probably came from very different localities, reached different sizes, and had some other differences. We still lovingly refer to them as flavos. Many in American collections will still be given this name, as most of them have been interbred, and it would be nearly impossible to identify based on the new nomenclature.

Due to the difficulty in identifying Chinese box turtles, and the fact that this individual has unique coloration, it would be nearly impossible to identify exactly. Do you know its locality? Where was this picture taken?

I'm confident that it is a light phenotype of the Chinese box turtle, vague enough? Genetic mutations would only be evident through DNA analysis or selective breeding. You could also test for the presence of certain amino acids. For example, it appears as if this turtle doesn't produce much of the orange/yellow pigment.

The Chinese authorities have recently begun to allow international taxonomists and biologist to perform supervised expiditions for the purpose of species identification. A fellow member of my herp society is over there currently identifying herps. He is mostly interested in snakes, but I'm sure that he's dealing somewhat with chelonians. This will either help our identification, or further confuse all of us.

Any corrections to my grasp of flavomarginata are welcome. I have a young galbinifrons, and that species is just as confusing. I've never had a flavo, but would like to. They're quite charming.

I think you pegged it right. I believe it is a hypomelanistic Chinese Box.

It may be that someone was trying to develop a new variety.

Those facial markings( although much lighter) along with the slightly lower dome, scute pattern up front, and shell color point to a true Chinese Box. .....hypomelanistic.

Where did you come across this?

Ric K.

C. flavomarginata is a distinct species. It's split into three subspecies by some taxonomists based on geographic separation. I don't know the molecular status of these divisions.

C. pani is a valid species represented by field specimens. C. aurocapitata is now regarded by some as a subspecies of C. pani. There is a wide gap between the two species' documented ranges, and since both are critically endangered, who knows if any wild-occurring intermediate specimens will be found.

C. mccordi and C. zhoui are the species represented by limited market specimens and have never been documented in the wild. Far as I’m aware, they’re the only two market-described “species” not yet proven to be hybrids.

The animal in my pictures above is C. mccordi, one of around half a dozen specimens on exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo. I think this species will become much more affordable once it’s published to be a C. flavomarginata x C. trifascitata hybrid.

Below are photos of a mccordi I did not take; this one leans more towards the trifasciata “look.”