EMYSystem Text Only Species Page: Psammobates geometricus
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order..........TESTUDINES (turtles, tortoises and terrapins)
family...........Testudinidae (Tortoises)
subfamily.......Testudininae ()
genus...............Psammobates (South African Star Tortoises)
species..............Psammobates geometricus (Geometric Tortoise)
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- Original Description
- Linnaeus 1758 : 199
- Syntype
- (1 specimen) ZMUU 20, plus published material; Hoogmoed and Crumly 1984:241, 254-55 designated the figure in Piso 1658:105 as lectotype (see Comment).
- Type Locality
- "Asia"; restricted to "southwestern Cape Province, South Africa" by Baard (1991:9)
- Original name
- Testudo geometrica
- Common Name
- Geometric Tortoise
- Distribution
- Southwestern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa
- Comments
- Wallin (1977) showed that a Linnaean type specimen of Testudo geometrica is actually a Geochelone elegans (Schoepff, 1795). To avoid nomenclatural chaos, Hoogmoed and Crumly (1984) considered the figure in Piso (1658) as syntypical and designated it as lectotype. Reviewed by Loveridge and Williams (1957), Rau (1971; 1976), Greig and Burdett (1976), Groombridge (1982), Boycott and Bourquin (1988), Baard (in Swingland and Klemens, 1989), and Baard (1990, 1991).
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