In a first, critically endangered elongated tortoise spotted in Aravallis
The medium-sized tortoise with a yellowish brown or olive shell and distinct black blotches at the centre of each scute was found in Haryana's Damdama area.
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Elongated tortoises were assessed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list of threatened species in 2018. A critically endangered species, the elongated tortoise (Indotestudo elongata), was spotted in Haryana’s Damdama area during a research survey in the Aravallis.
The tortoise is medium-sized with a yellowish brown or olive shell and distinct black blotches at the centre of each scute. The tortoise has on its nostril a pink ring, which appears in the breeding season. Mature individuals of both sexes develop a distinct pinkish colouration surrounding the nostrils and eyes during the season.
The tortoise, found in the Sal deciduous and hilly evergreen forests, is distributed across Southeast Asia from northern India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh in the west, eastward through Myanmar, Thailand, and all of Indochina, north to Guangxi Province of China and south to Peninsular Malaysia.
A disjunct tortoise population exists in the Chota Nagpur plateau in eastern India. It also inhabits lowlands and foothills of up to 1,000 m above sea level.
Sunil Harsana, an environmentalist, and Nitesh Kaushik, a project fellow at Coexistence Consortium, discovered the tortoise and an expert in the field, Sneha Dharwadkar, identified the species through photographs. Harsana had deployed cameras in the region.
“There have not been enough surveys to ascertain its presence in Aravallis, but the tortoise is found in the foothills of the Himalayas. It inhabits wetter areas and discovering it here is an aberration than a norm,” Dharwadkar said, adding that it cannot be ruled out that the tortoise was brought by trade.
Harsana said it was the turtle’s first sighting in the region as it was not native to the Aravallis.
The tortoise was left alone as the researchers were unsure of its path.
Elongated tortoises were assessed for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species in 2018 and are listed as critically endangered, under criteria A2cd. A research paper by scientists from across the world, compiled by the IUCN, says that despite having a wide distribution with areas of suitable habitat remaining, the turtle has recently undergone severe population declines due to human activities.
“Currently, I. elongata is heavily exploited for food and traditional medicine throughout its range. Local people often opportunistically capture tortoises while farming or extracting other forest resources. However, deliberate hunting also occurs and dogs continue to be widely used for finding tortoises,” the paper states.
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