A taxonomic reappraisal of the turle Pseudemys alabamensis baur
Carr A and Crenshaw Jr. JW. 1957. A taxonomic reappraisal of the turle Pseudemys alabamensis baur. Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History. 2(3):25-42
During a recent study of certain sections of the emydine turtle genus Pseudemys, Crenshaw made a search for new characters that might be brought to bear on the question of relationships among the complexes in the southeastern United States. One aspect of the study led to a re-evaluation of the placement of Pseudemys alabamensis Baur in the synonymy of Pseudemys fioridana mobilensis by Carr (1952). The present paper proposes that, in spite of the fact that all its characters occur individually with greater or lesser frequency in one stock or another of the P. fioridana group, alabarnensis may be a real genetic entity occupying a continuous small range in the Gulf drainage of the southeastern coastal plain. If so, its retention in synonymy can only lead to the ignoring of a zoogeographic situation which, though by no means well understood, appears to be of extraordinary interest. Crenshaw was successful, as will be shown below, in finding at least one character that seems as good as, or better than, any hitherto used in defining the Pseudernys rubriventris group. A reassessment of alabarnensis in the light of the new criterion brings out or re-emphasizes four salient facts: (l) The diagnosis of alabamensis, formerly weak, is strengthened. (2) The characters of alabamensis suggest P. nelsoni of peninsular Florida as the nearest relative. (3) P. alabamensis appears to form with nelsoni, and with rubriventris of the Atlantic coastal plain north of North Carolina, a species complex with a curiously discontinuous distribution-a catena of stocks so closely knit that the gaps geographically separating the three forms seem incongruous. (4) P. alabamensis shares with nelsoni and rubriventris, and perhaps accentuates, a peculiar relationship with the fioridana group, a section of the genus which, when judged by typical examples only, seems so divergent as to be of almost subgeneric level.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Carr, Archie; Crenshaw Jr., John
- Units
- SFCN
- Keywords
- cranial study, emyidne turtle, population range, Taxonomy, zoogeographic history