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Reptiles Database
Order Testudines
Suborder Pleurodira
Family Pelomedusidae (African Mud Terrapins)
Appearance: African Mud Terrapins usually have oblong, moderately high-domed carapaces, large plastra (hinged in Pelusios, not hinged in Pelomedusa) and moderate-sized heads.
The jaw closure mechanism articulates on a pterygoid trochlear surface that lacks a synovial capsule but contains a fluid-filled saclike duct from the buccal cavity. Both epipterygoid and parietal-squamosal contact is missing in the skull; the internal carotid canal lies in the prootic, and the postorbital has strong contact to the squamosal. The facial nerve has a hyomandibular branch. The plastron has a mesoplastron and well-developed plastral buttresses that articulate with the costals on each side of the carapace; the carapace has 11 pairs of sutured peripherals around its margin and a nuchal without costiform processes. The neck withdraws horizontally, and this mechanism is reflected in an anteriorly oriented articular surface of the first thoracic vertebra; other vertebral traits are the inclusion of the 10th thoracic vertebra in the sacral complex and procoelous caudal vertebrae. The pelvic girdle is firmly fused to the plastron, and the ilium lacks a thelial process. The karyotype is 2N = 34 or 36 (after Zug et al. 2001).
Size: 12 cm (Pelusios nanus) to 46 cm (Pelusios sinuatus) carapace length (adults).
Distribution: Sub-Sharan Africa, Madagascar, Seychelles.
Habitat: Mud terrapins are semiaquatic or aquatic bottom walkers of slow-moving waters (lakes , swamps, marshes etc.).
Food: small animals such as arthropods, worms, etc.
Behaviour: Species in seasonally dry waterways estivate or hibernate in the bottom or on shore immediately adjacent to the drying habitat.
Reproduction: clutches have 6 to 18 eggs, depending on female size. Egg deposition occurs in the more equitable season of the year. Incubation periods range from 8 to 10 weeks.
Relationships: The Pelomedusidae have also been considered as a subfamily Pelomedusinae of a bigger family "Pelomedusidae sensu lato" which included the Podocnemididae as a second subfamily (Podocnemidinae, containing the genera Erymnochelys, Peltocephalus, and Podocnemis). See tree below and the Podocnemididae and Chelidae pages.
List of Genera:
Phylogeny
Phylogenetic relationships of the pelomedusoid genera. A consensus of nodes in the pleurodiran phylogeny to receive 70% or greater bootstrap support in one or more of the maximum parsimony (weighted and unweighted) or maximum likelihood sub-analyses. Numbers shown in parentheses give the analyses that provide the support: 2, all taxa using 12S rRNA and 16S rRNA only; 3, Australasian chelids using 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA and CO1. Numbers bearing an asterisk indicate that bootstrap support was equal to or greater than 70% only in some of the three sub-analyses (after Georges et al. 1998).
Branch, William R.;Benn, G. A.;Lonbard, A. T. (1995)
The tortoises (Testudines) and terrapins (Pelomedusidae) of
southern Africa: their diversity, distribution and conservation.
South African Journal of Zoology 30 (3): 91-102
Broadley, D.G. (1981)
A review of the genus Pelusios Wagler in southern Africa
(Pleurodira: Pelomedusidae).
Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Rhodesia, B, Natural
Science. 6 (9): 633-686.
Ernst,C.H. & Barbour,R.W. (1989)
Turtles of the World
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. - London
Gaffney, E. S.;Meylan, P. A.;Wyss, A. R. (1991)
A computer assisted analysis of the relationships of the higher
categories of turtles.
Cladistics 7: 313-335
GEORGES A, BIRRELL J, SAINT K. M., McCORD W & S. C. DONNELLAN
(1998)
A phylogeny for side-necked turtles (Chelonia: Pleurodira) based
on mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequence variation
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 67:
213&endash;246.
Shaffer, H.B.; Meylan, P. & McKnight, M.L. (1997)
Tests of turtle phylogeny: molecular, morphological, and
paleontological approaches.
Syst. Biol. 46: 235-268
Wermuth,H. & Mertens,R. (1977)
Liste der rezenten Amphibien und Reptilien:
Testudines, Crocodylia, Rhynchocephalia
Das Tierreich, Lfg. 100, XXVII + 174 pp.
Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York
Zug,G.R.; Vitt, L.J. & Caldwell, J.P. (2001)
Herpetology,
2nd ed.
Academic Press San Diego, London, [...]XIV + 630 pp.