Testudo guntheri Baur, 1889

Nowak-Kemp, Małgosia & Fritz, Uwe, 2010, Chelonian type specimens at the Oxford University Museum, Zootaxa 2604 (1), pp. 1-19 : 16

Testudo guntheri Baur, 1889

Current name: unclear

Syntype (1 specimen): OUM 8656 (articulated skeleton, SCL 79 cm).

Remarks: “ Testudo güntheri ” was erected by Baur (1889: p. 1044) for the tortoises that were placed in the species Testudo elephantopus by Günther (1877). The latter author states that he referred five specimens to Testudo elephantopus (pp. 63–64); one from the Oxford Museum (now catalogued as OUM 8656), two further specimens from the collection of the Free Public Museum, Liverpool, and one each from the collections of the British Museum (now Natural History Museum, London) and the Royal College of Surgeons, London. OUM 8656 is depicted on several plates in Günther (1877) and has been catalogued as “ Holotype of Testudo guntheri Baur ” in Oxford. However, it is clear from the list of specimens provided by Günther (1877) that OUM 8656 and the other four tortoises are syntypes. All of these tortoises have no exact locality data. Therefore, Testudo guntheri should best be treated as nomen dubium, although it has been previously identified with giant tortoises from the southwest of Albemarle Island, Galapagos (e.g., Wermuth & Mertens 1977; Fritz & Havaš 2007).