Chelidae, Gray, 1831

Páez, Vivian P., Bock, Brian C., Alzate-Estrada, Diego A., Barrientos-Muñoz, Karla G., Cartagena-Otálvaro, Viviana M., Echeverry-Alcendra, Andrea, Gómez-Rincón, Marley T., Ramírez-Gallego, Cristian, Sofía, Jennifer & Vallejo-Betancur, Margarita M., 2022, Turtles of Colombia: an annotated analysis of their diversity, distribution, and conservation status, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 306) 16 (1), pp. 106-135 : 116-117

Chelidae

Chelus . Matamata turtles exhibit geographic variation in carapace shape and color, with individuals from the Orinoco drainage having rounder, lighter colored carapaces than Amazonian individuals ( Pritchard and Trebbau 1984; Sánchez-Villagra et al. 1995; Pritchard 2008). An examination of two mtDNA fragments ( Lasso et al. 2018) also revealed haplotype differences between the Orinoco and Amazonian individuals from Colombia. Finally, an examination of three mtDNA fragments, one nuclear DNA fragment, and multiple SNPs from individuals across the range of Chelus fimbriata (sensu lato) revealed a deep phylogenetic division between samples from the Orinoco, Rio Negro, and Essequibo drainages versus samples from the Amazon and Mahury drainages, prompting Vargas-Ramírez et al. (2020) to elevate the former clade to the species level as Chelus orinocensis .

Mesoclemmys heliostemma (McCord, Jospeh-Ouni, and Lamar, 2001) . This species was described based on five voucher specimens and nine live individuals from the western Amazon region, specifically northeastern Peru, eastern Ecuador, and southern Venezuela ( McCord et al. 2001). Molina et al. (2012) examined eight additional individuals from eastern Peru and northern Brazil, and concluded that the species is valid and morphologically distinct from M. raniceps (but see Cunha et al. 2019). They suggested that reports of M. heliostemma for Colombia were cases of misidentification of M. raniceps individuals. The previous TTWG checklist (TTWG 2017) mentioned Colombia as likely to include M. heliostemma , presenting a range map with a polygon that included Colombia but without any point locations. Our searches failed to find any vouchers or literature reports corroborating the occurrence of this species in Colombia. Finally, Cuhna et al. (2019) reviewed the convoluted history of the taxonomy of the genus Mesoclemmys and presented evidence indicating that females of M. raniceps may oviposit clutches that produce hatchlings with both M. raniceps and M. heliostemma phenotypes. They concluded that M. heliostemma should be considered a junior synonym to M. raniceps and warned against describing species solely on the basis of differences in color patterns. This recent taxonomic proposal, combined with the lack of any vouchers or literature records for the occurrence of turtles exhibiting the “ M. heliostemma ” phenotype in Colombia, led us to exclude this species from our checklist.

Mesoclemmys ranicpes and M. wermuthi . Cuhna et al. (2019) not only synonymized M. raniceps and M. heliostemma , they also resurrected the species

Mesoclemmys wermuthi , which had been previously synonymized with M. raniceps ( Bour and Pauler 1987) . They also argued that the name Mesoclemmys maculata had precedence as the correct name for this resurrected species.Although the most recent TTWG (2021) checklist chose to recognize the species, it retained the name M. wermuthi . Apparently both M. raniceps and M. wermuthi have been reported to occur along the Colombian borders with Peru and Brazil (TTWG 2021), but our searches only produced one voucher specimen identified as M. raniceps . Thus, this is the one instance in which we failed to find a rigorous record for a species purported to occur in Colombia ( M. wermuthi ), or alternately, the voucher we located is actually a specimen of M. wermuthi that was misidentified, in which case we lack a rigorous record for M. raniceps .