Reptile & Amphibian Forums

any distinguishing marks or drawing that has details i can see to differentiate these turtles? thanks alot all in advance.

These are easy to distinguish, take a look at the chelonia.org Cuora Gallery, there are pictures of all of them, if you are still uncertain post a picture of your specimen here. Or send it by mail.

it's for a paper i am doing.
did the checking already, their shells all look somewhat the same, some difference on the head coloration and a little on their head markings. but the pics are not that clear. i got a book of the CITES ID for animals, the common boxes are in there but not these species... detailed differentiating characteristics would be a lot helpful. drawings of their shell and undersides are the best )

I would suggest getting the original descriptions then, these are:

For Zhoui:

Zhao, E., Zhou, T. and Ye, P. 1990 A new Chinese Box Turtle (Testudinata: Emydidae) - Cuora zhoui, p.213-216. In Zhao E. (ed.), From Water onto Land. China Forestry Press, Beijing (in Chinese with English abstract).

McCord, W. P., & Iverson, J.B. 1991: A new box turtle of the genus Cuora (Testudines: Emydidae) with taxonomic notes and a key to the species. (Describes as pallidicephala, I suggest this is good vor all species!)

Pani:

Song, M. 1984. A new species of the turtle genus Cuora (Testudoformes: Testudinidae). Acta Zootaxonomica Sinica 9: 330-332; (Chinesisch) English Translation by Zong E. 2001 in Asiatic Herpetological Research Vol.9, S. 142-144

Ernst, C.H. & McCord, W.P. 1987: Two new turtles from southeast Asia. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., 1987; 100(3): 624-628. (described as chriskaranarum)

Aurocapitata:

Luo,B. & Zong,Y., 1988: A new species of Cuora - Cuora aurocapitata; Acta Herpetologica Sinica, Beijing, 3: 13-16

Ernst, C.H. 1988. Redescriptions of two Chinese Cuora (Reptilia: Testudines: Emydidae). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 101(1):155-161. (wrongly described as pani)

There are no drawings arround. Pani and aurocapitata are very close to each other and might represent subspecies. Zhoui is completely different, it is broader, has a blackish plastron with two unique horn coloured triangles in the middle (see the pics on chelonia.org), pani has the bar like pattern, which also occurs in aurocapitata, but auro also can have a diffuse radiated pattern, highly variable...

What is the paper intended for? Maybe I can help you out with some more info.

it's going to be for a paper on wildlife trade in asia.
i am now on the topic of the turtle market in china...
next would be the markets in myanmar, laos, vietnam and indonesia...

any help on the locations and whereabouts of the markets i am talking about would be greatly appreciated.

thanks again for replying.

I did mail you the information you required 2 days ago, did the message arrive?

are any of you aware of an article on these subspecies (which might put a lot of people off)by saying they all decendants/intergrades of the abundant flavos?