Mud Turtle on the Ubange River

It took us over a week to reach here from the cities of Kinshasa and then Mbandaka, to the village of Bobangi along the Ubange River that forms the border between Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa.  Our expedition arrived in pirogues (dugout canoes) a few days ago, on a project to help local villagers develop their own forest resource management plans.  As a vote of thanks in this village, as we leave, the village chief and his council present us with several gifts of plants and animals, including this turtle.

Just a turtle?  This is a Central African mud turtle, which was captured here along the banks of the Ubange River.  The species is not well studied and, in fact, these may be some of the first photos in its native environment.  

The Central African mud turtle belongs to the family of turtles called Afro-American side-necked turtles.  Indeed, as this turtle pulls its head into its shell, it turns the head sideways, and then the lower shell (the plastron) hinges upward to close off access by predators to the head and neck.  

In all, there are some 17 species of Pelusios (in general called African hinged terrapins).  

This species is Pelusios chapini, although in 1977 taxonomists combined it with the species Pelusios castaneus, the West African mud turtle, and then later split it out as a subspecies.  More recent analysis (in 1983), though, put it into its own species, and therein may lie some confusion.  Most specimens of "Pelusios chapini" found in zoos likely are misidentified and not this species, which makes this finding more important. 

The status of this turtle species throughout its range in central Africa is essentially unknown.  This turtle, like many others, are CITES Category III species.  CITES is an international convention to protect wildlife species, and category III species are those populations of species and subspecies of wildlife that highly need local protection.  However, in Bobangi Village, this turtle, like most other wildlife, is hunted, trapped, or netted for food to eat or sell as bushmeat.  Impacts of such use on local populations of this species are unknown.

--Bruce G. Marcot

Image and text © Bruce G. Marcot, Ph.D. Research Wildlife Ecologist,
who produces the Ecology Picture of the Week website.