Chelydra
Genus of turtles
Chelydra is one of the two extant genera of the snapping turtle family, Chelydridae, the other being Macrochelys, the much larger alligator snapping turtle. The snapping turtles are native to the Americas, with Chelydra having three species, one in North America and two in Central America, one of which is also found in northwestern South America.
01Species
The genus Chelydra has the following species:
- Chelydra acutirostris (W. Peters, 1862), South American snapping turtle
- Chelydra rossignonii (Bocourt, 1868), Central American snapping turtle
- Chelydra serpentina (Linnaeus, 1758), common snapping turtle (North America)
- Chelydra floridana†
- Chelydra laticarinata†
- Chelydra sculpta†
The three extant Chelydra species were once all considered to be several subspecies of Chelydra serpentina, along with a fourth subspecies in Florida, Chelydra serpentina osceola. C. s. osceola is now considered to be synonymous with C. serpentina.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Chelydra”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Snapping turtle 2 md.jpg by User:Moondigger, CC BY-SA 2.5
- Chelydra fossil FLMNH.jpg by Geekgecko, CC BY 4.0
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