Review of chelid and emydid turtle distributions in southern South America with emphasis on extralimital populations and new records for Argentina

MARÍA B. SEMEÑIUK; GERARDO C. LEYNAUD; ROCÍO M. SÁNCHEZ; LEANDRO ALCALDE; MARÍA J. CASSANO; LILIANA MORENO

HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL

BRITISH HERPETOL SOC

Lugar: Montrose, Angus, UK; Año: 2019 vol. 29 p. 219 - 231

0268-0130

There are many cases of animals reported in localiti es away from natural areas of distributi on for the species. With respect to nati ve freshwater turtles of Argenti na and bordering countries, several populati ons (and single specimens) were reported for areas that cast doubts about their origin, due to not only the long distance from other known localiti es but also the geographical barriers that are in between. The present work provides a review of localiti es of the turtle species Hydromedusa tecti fera, Phrynops hilarii, Acanthochelys pallidipectoris, A. spixii and Trachemys dorbigni in Argenti na, Bolivia,Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and adds new records for some of these species for Argenti na. We also employ an analysis to recognise core and extralimital populati ons, and a methodology based on fi ve criteria that must be taken into account toelucidate if one extralimital turtle record is the result of anthropogenic acti on or a case of natural occurrence. Finally, we discuss about the origin of extralimital reports of turtles of the menti oned species