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Nilssonia leithii (GRAY, 1872)

IUCN Red List - Nilssonia leithii - Critically Endangered, CR
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Higher TaxaTrionychidae (Trionychinae), Trionychoidea, Testudines (turtles)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Nagpur Soft-shelled Turtle 
SynonymTrionyx leithii GRAY 1872
Trionys javanicus GRAY 1831: 19/48 (partim)
Potamochelys stellatus GRAY 1864: 85
Aspilus gataghol GRAY 1872: 330
Isola leithii — BAUR 1893
Trionyx sulcifrons ANNANDALE 1915
Trionyx leithii — ALDERTON 1988
Aspideretes leithii — ERNST & BARBOUR 1989: 107
Aspideretes leithii — GEMEL & PRASCHAG 2003
Aspideretes leithii — BONIN et al 2006
Nilssonia leithii — PRASCHAG et al. 2007
Aspideretes leithii — FRITZ & HAVAŠ 2007
Aspideretes leithii — VYAS 2007
Aspideretes leithii — MURTHY 2010: 24
Nilssonia leithii — LIEBING et al. 2012
Nilssonia leithii — TTWG 2014: 417
Nilssonia leithii — TTWG 2021
Nilssonia leithii — TTWG 2025 
DistributionIndia (in the Bhavani, Godaveri, and Moyer rivers, Kerala; Karnataka)

Type locality: "Poonah," India.  
Reproductionoviparous. 
TypesSyntypes: BMNH 1947.3.4.15 and 1947.3.6.7. 
DiagnosisUnfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 1873 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentSynonymy: For a more complete synonymy see GEMEL & PRASCHAG (2003).

According to the molecular data of Engstrom et al. (2004) Aspideretes should be renamed Nillsonia as Nilssonia (GRAY 1872) has priority over Aspideretes (HAY 1903).

Distribution: Nilssonia leithii was historically reported from Tapi river, South Gujarat (Bhatt, 1989; Frazier and Das, 1994). However, this species hasn't been reported since then, and vouchers would be needed to confirm their continued existence in the state, hence Patel & Vyas 2019 exclude N. leithii from their list of Gujarati reptiles.

Habitat: freshwater (rivers and tributaries, lakes) 
EtymologyNamed after Dr. Andrew H. Leith, a physician employed in Bombay as Sanitary Commissioner. 
References
  • Alderton, D. 1988. Turtles and tortoises of the world. Facts on File, New York.
  • Baur, G. 1893. Notes on the classification and taxonomy of the Testudinata. Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 31: 210-225 - get paper here
  • Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here
  • Bonin, F., Devaux, B. & Dupré, A. 2006. Turtles of the World. English translation by P.C.H. Pritchard. Johns Hopkins University Press, 416 pp.
  • Bour, R. 2008. Global diversity of turtles (Chelonii; Reptilia) in freshwater. Hydrobiologia 595:593–598 - get paper here
  • Das, I. et al. 2008. Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles of India. WWF/WII poster
  • ENGSTROM, TAG N.; H. BRADLEY SHAFFER AND WILLIAM P. MCCORD 2004. Multiple Data Sets, High Homoplasy, and the Phylogeny of Softshell Turtles (Testudines: Trionychidae). Systematic Biology 53 (5): 693–710 - get paper here
  • Ernst,C.H. and Barbour,R.W. 1989. Turtles of the World. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. - London
  • Ganesh S.R., Bubesh Guptha 2021. Herpetological diversity in the Central Eastern Ghats, Peninsular India. Journal of Animal Diversity 3 (3): 18-44 - get paper here
  • Gemel, R.; Praschag, P. 2003. On the nomenclature and vernacular names of recent Aspideretes species (Reptilia, Testudines, Trionychidae). Zoologische Abhandlungen - Staatliches Museum fur Tierkunde in Dresden 53(1):93-105.
  • Gerard, Jason Dominic, Deepak Veerappan, Ram K, Peter Christopher & Uwe Fritz. 2023. New records of Leith’s softshell turtle (Nilssonia leithii, Gray 1872) after 30 years from Kaveri River delta in Tamil Nadu, India.: Nilssonia leithii Resurfaces in Tamil Nadu. Hamadryad 40(1 and 2). - get paper here
  • Gray, J. E. 1831. Synopsis Reptilium or short descriptions of the species of reptiles. Part I: Cataphracta, tortoises, crocodiles, and enaliosaurians. Treuttel, Wurz & Co., London, 85 pp. - get paper here
  • Gray, J. E. 1864. Revision of the species of Trionychidae found in Asia and Africa, with descriptions of some new species. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1864: 76-98 - get paper here
  • Gray, J.E. 1872. Notes on the mud-tortoises of India (Trionyx, Geoffroy). Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (4) 10: 326-340. - get paper here
  • Liebing, Nicole; Peter Praschag , Rupali Gosh , Karthikeyan Vasudevan , s.M.a. Rashid, Ding-qi Rao , Heiko Stuckas & Uwe Fritz 2012. Molecular phylogeny of the softshell turtle genus Nilssonia revisited, with first records of N. formosa for China and wild-living N. nigricans for Bangladesh. Vertebrate Zoology 62 (2): 261-272 - get paper here
  • Murthy, T.S.N. 2010. The reptile fauna of India. B.R. Publishing, New Delhi, 332 pp.
  • Nameer, P.O.; KR Unnikrishnan & Jim Thomas 2007. Record of Leith's Softshell Turtle Aspideretes leithii (Gray, 1872) (Family Trionychidae) from Kerala. Reptile Rap (8): 5 - get paper here
  • Palot, M.J. 2015. A checklist of reptiles of Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 7(13): 8010–8022 - get paper here
  • Patel, Harshil; and Raju Vyas 2019. Reptiles of Gujarat, India: Updated Checklist, Distribution, and Conservation Status. Herpetology Notes 12: 765-777 - get paper here
  • Praschag, P.; Hundsdörfer, A.K.; Reza, A.H.M.A. & Fritz, U. 2007. Genetic evidence for wild-living Aspideretes nigricans and a molecular phylogeny of South Asian softshell turtles (Reptilia: Trionychidae: Aspideretes, Nilssonia). Zoologica Scripta 36 (4): 301-310 - get paper here
  • Purkayastha, J., DAS, I., Sengupta, S. 2015. Freshwater Turtles & Tortoises of South Asia. Bhabani Books, 138 pp. - get paper here
  • Sagar, H. S., Mrunmayee, M., Chethan, I., Kumar, M., & Girish, D. 2019. Elusive, rare and soft: a new site record of Leith’s Softshell Turtle Nilssonia leithii (Reptilia: Testudines: Trionychidae) from Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Karnataka, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 11(13), 14770-14772 - get paper here
  • TTWG [TURTLE TAXONOMY WORKING GROUP: RHODIN, A.G.J., IVERSON, J.B., FRITZ, U., GALLEGO-GARCÍA, N., GEORGES, A., SHAFFER, H.B., AND VAN DuK, P.P.]. 2025. Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status (10th Ed.). In: Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., van Dijk, P.P., Stanford, C.B., Goode, E.V., Buhlmann, K.A., and Mittermeier, R.A. (Eds.). Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises: A Compilation Project of the IUCN SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. Chelonian Research Monographs 10:1-575 - get paper here
  • TTWG; Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., Bour, R., Fritz, U., Georges, A., Shaffer, H.B., and van Dijk, P.P. 2021. Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status (9th Ed.). In: Rhodin, A.G.J., Iverson, J.B., van Dijk, P.P., Stanford, C.B., Goode, E.V., Buhlmann, K.A., and Mittermeier, R.A. (Eds.). Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises: A Compilation Project of the IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. Chelonian Research Monographs 8:1–472. doi:10.3854/crm.8.checklist.atlas.v9.2021. - get paper here
  • Vyas, Raju 2007. Present conservation scenario of reptile fauna in Gujarat State, India. Indian Forester, Oct 2007: 1381-1394 - get paper here
 
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