Rafetus euphraticus

Aidek, Ahmad E., Saad, Adib, Jablonski, Daniel, Esterbauer, Hans & Fritz, Uwe, 2024, Turtles and tortoises of Syria: Diversity, distribution, and conservation, Zootaxa 5506 (2), pp. 151-193 : 168-170

Rafetus euphraticus (Olivier in Daudin, 1801)

Euphrates Softshell Turtle ( Fig. 16 )

IUCN Red List Category: Endangered (EN A4c)

Type locality: “Le Tigre et l’Euphrate” [Tigris and Euphrates Rivers]; restricted to Euphrates (Al Firat), vicinity of Anah, Al-Anbar ( Iraq) by Bour et al. (1995) .

Type specimen: Not located, but the animal figured on plate 41 in Daudin (1801) was designated as holotype by Bour et al. (1995).

Chorotype: SW Asiatic (Mesopotamian).

First records for Syria: Ar-Raqqa, Al-Hasaka ( Siebenrock 1913).

Literature data: Ar-Raqqa, Al-Hasaka (= Hsitsche; Siebenrock 1913), ar-Raqqa ( Kinzelbach 1986), at-Tebni, Al-Hseiniyeh ( Aidek 2010).

Museum specimens: Jarablus ( NMW 1856:1), Al-Hasaka ( NMW 30291:3–4), ar-Raqqa ( NMW 30282:1, 30283:1, 30892:1), ar-Rasafah ( NMW 30895:1).

Citizen science record: Abu Qbei’ (observation.org 2023).

Recent records: Al-Bseireh, Al-Hasaka, Al-Jamel, Gharaneij, Muhasan, Sadd Mazkaft, Sadd Tishreen, Tabqah, Tell Tamr.

Distribution in Syria: Along the Euphrates River and the upper Al-Khabour River, but very rare. Its numbers have declined significantly in recent years as it was often caught in fishermen’s lines ( Fig. 17 ).

Remarks: TaŞkavak et al. (2016) provided comprehensive information about distribution, classification, nesting, threats, etc. but without any additional information related to Syria.

Specimen NMW 30895:1 are viscera collected from ar-Rasafah. This site is arid and far from the river, so it is most likely that they were carried there by a predator from the vicinity of ar-Raqqa. Ar-Rasafah (see Appendix 1) is not shown on the distribution map for R. euphraticus ( Fig. 17 ) but included in the grid cell map ( Fig. 3 ).

There are 19 records from Syria on GBIF. Of these, 16 are not from Syria but from Iraq and Türkiye.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Species diversity of turtles and tortoises (total number of species recorded per 20x20 km grid cell) projected on the (A) topographic and (B) biogeographic map of Syria. The grid cells with the highest species diversity (3 or 4 species) are highlighted as full red squares; important areas with conseration priority are indicated by a red border in (B).

FIGURE 16. Euphrates softshell turtle, Rafetus euphraticus. (A) Young individual,Al-Hseiniyeh; (B) adult individual, at-Tebni (photos: Ahmad Aidek).

FIGURE 17. Records of Rafetus euphraticus in Syria. Black circles: previous records, blue circle: recently confirmed previous record, red circles: new records.