Turtles 'trick' the whole village of science

Scientists have claimed the freshwater turtle Pelusios seychellensis on the Seychelles island nation has become extinct, but recently they broke the unexpected truth about them.

According to the 1906 description, Pelusios seychellensis is a small turtle, just as big as a human hand. They are considered endemic to Mahé Island - one of the main islands of the Seychelles, the island nation of Africa is located on the Indian Ocean about 1,500 km east of Madagascar.

However, there has never been a trace of the turtle on Mahé Island, except for the three samples provided by a museum in Africa in the early 20th century. Finally, the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared this species extinct in 2003.

Turtles Pelusios castaneus. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Pelusios seychellensis is very similar to the common West African turtle named Pelusios castaneus . The species Pelusios castaneus lives in the area from Senegal to Angola, along the west coast of Africa, by the Seychelles Islands by the entire African continent and the vast ocean.

Therefore, the scientific world once thought there were two possibilities. Firstly, a small number of species of Pelusios castaneus exceed tens of thousands of kilometers from West Africa to East Africa. Second, humans brought this group of turtles to Mahé Island.

However, both assumptions are not convincing because of the large geographical distance between the two fields.

Dissatisfied with the assumptions, the group of scientists from Germany and Australia decided to find out the truth. They thoroughly studied the DNA of two turtles to realize they were just one.

"Two turtles are actually the same species. We think that the museum staff misbranded three specimens. They should have labeled three turtle specimens from West African countries, they would "This is not the first time the same mistakes have occurred with turtles," said study co-author Uwe Fritz, of the Senckenberg Research Institute of the University of Dresden, Germany. PloS One magazine.

Previously, a New Guinea turtle described in 1905 turned out to be a North American turtle. A Vietnamese turtle described in 1941 is actually a tortoise in Madagascar.

Currently German and Australian scientists in the project also suspect that the other species of Seychelles island turtle, Pelusios subniger, is not endemic to the country.