A Distinctive New Species of Mud Turtle from Western México

A New Species of Mud Turtle of Genus Kinosternon (Testudines: Kinosternidae) from the Pacific Coastal Plain of Northwestern Mexico

“…A similar situation occurred in the state of Nayarit, when on 23 August 1962 an unidentified turtle was collected 11 km S of Acaponeta, which was later reported as a juvenile female of Kinosternon chimalhuaca (Webb 2001). Based on the morphological characteristics of this individual detailed by Webb (2001), López-Luna et al (2018) entertained the possibility of it belonging to a more northern population of Kinosternon vogti. The recent observation and capture of other individuals in southern Sinaloa with the same characteristics prompted the reexamination of the original specimen, deposited in the Herpetology Collection of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP 3908).…”

“…Those studies have painted a detailed picture of the herpetofaunal biodiversity of the region (Van Denburgh 1897, Hardy and McDiarmid 1969, García 2006, Chávez-Ávila et al, 2015, Woolrich-Piña et al, 2016. However, some groups remained poorly studied, such as freshwater turtles of the genus Kinosternon, with eight species distributed along the Pacific versant in Mexico, of the total of 16 that inhabit Mexico (Legler and Vogt 2013, TTWG 2017, López-Luna et al 2018. This genus has been under-studied in this region, potentially due to their aquatic habits, and the difficulty in differentiating among species (Legler and Vogt 2013).…”

“…For example, the morphologically distinctive dwarf species Kinosternon vogti López-Luna et al 2018 was only recently described from the Bahía de Banderas region of Jalisco. Specimens of this species were misidentified as Kinosternon chimalhuaca Berry et al 1997 for almost two decades (Cupul-Magaña and Rubio-Delgado 2003) before the species was properly described (López-Luna et al 2018). A similar situation occurred in the state of Nayarit, when on 23 August 1962 an unidentified turtle was collected 11 km S of Acaponeta, which was later reported as a juvenile female of Kinosternon chimalhuaca (Webb 2001).…”

Ampliación del ámbito geográfico y de la talla máxima de Kinosternon chimalhuaca (Testudines: Kinosternidae)

“…1a). Aunque existen registros de K. chimalhuaca fuera de este ámbito de distribución (van Dijk et al, 2007), estos deben desestimarse al tratarse de identificaciones erróneas de la especie (López-Luna et al, 2018).…”

“…Finalmente, este registro perfila a la región de Puerto Vallarta entre las más diversas en tortugas dulceacuícolas de la costa del Pacífico mexicano con seis especies: K. chimalhuaca (este trabajo), K. integrum Le Conte, 1854, K. vogti López-Luna et al, 2018, Trachemys ornata (Gray, 1831) (López-Luna et al, 2018, la especie introducida T. scripta (Thunberg in Schoepff, 1792) (Hernández-Macías et al, 2016) y Rhinoclemmys pulcherrima (Gray, 1855) (Rhodin et al, 2017).…”