Thanhnien News 4 Apr 11;
A group of scientists have discovered that Lam Dong Province in the Central Highlands is the habitat of an endangered turtle species, Saigon Tiep Thi reported Monday.
Dr. Bryan Stuart from the US-based North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and scientists from Ho Chi Minh City University of Sciences, found eight southern Vietnamese box turtles (Cuora picturata) in the forests of Langbian plateau during a study conducted from July 2010 to January this year.
Scientists have never spotted the turtle in the wild before.
A representative of the group said the discovery was significant to preserve the endangered animal. The species was first recorded in 1998 during an investigation into wildlife trades in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Cuora picturata is a “critically endangered” animal.
In other news, Quang Ngai Museum in the central province of the same name Saturday said archeologists have found a group of graves dating back more than 2,000 years.
The graves, belonging to one of the most prominent ancient Vietnamese cultures – Sa Huynh (1,000 BC-200 AD), were unearthed about five kilometers from an excavation site in Tay Tra District’s Tang valley.
They were located about one meter underground and between two-five meters from the Tang River’s banks.
According to the museum, scientists started excavating the Tang valley two months ago and so far have discovered many relics like pottery, jewelry, tools, and nearly 20 graves. The graves included jar and pot ones – a burial tradition in the Southeast Asia.
The relics are between 2,000-4,000 years old.
Turtle Known Only From Asian Markets Finally Found in Wild
Brandon Keim Wired Science 7 Apr 11;
In the early 1990s, biologists in southeast Asia discovered a species of turtle unknown to science. But there was a catch: They didn’t know where it came from. Cuora picturata, as the new turtle was formally named, was found only in markets where it was sold for food.
Nearly two decades later, a clever piece of biological sleuthing has found the native home of C. picturata. The discovery offers hope not just to C. picturata, but to other turtle species known only from markets.
“It’s frustrating. You see this animal being exploited, and likely facing extinction,” said Bryan Stuart, a biologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, whose search for C. picturata’s home was described April 1 in Biological Sciences. “But there’s little that conservation can do, because we’re missing the basic information necessary for conservation: Where does this species occur in the wild?”
Stuart and other researchers weren’t starting from scratch, however. From the location of markets where C. picturata was sold, they figured the turtles were captured in southern Vietnam or across the border in Cambodia. The turtle also resembled two other known box turtle species, Cuora galbinifrons and Cuora bourretti. Genetic comparisons proved their relation.
Those other turtles live in wet forests with closed canopies. The place best fitting that description in southern Vietnam was the Langbian plateau, at the southern tip of the Truong Son mountains — and C. bourreti lived in the central part of the mountains, with C. galbinifrons to the north.
The puzzle pieces were coming together, and there was one more clue. Where C. galbinifrons lived, so did Hylobates leucogenys, a species of gibbon, and Pygathrix nemaeus, a species of douc langur. Likewise, where C. bourretti lived, so did a Hylobates species closely related to the northern gibbons, and a Pygathrix species closely related to the northern doucs. Such so-called “co-occurences” result from historic events — a new river, a climate change — that split ancestral populations into separate groups. The Langbian plateau also had its own unique gibbon and douc langur; if the pattern held, C. picturata should be its box turtle.
But though Stuart could guess where C. picturata might be, he still needed help finding it. Enter Tri Ly, a biologist at the University of Science in Ho Chi Minh City, who had just finished his undergraduate studies and approached Stuart in search of a project.
Ly traveled to the Langbian plateau, where he interviewed villagers and met with hunters. In July of 2010, the first expedition set off. Hunting dogs were used to find turtles in the dense jungle foliage, but their barks were often false alarms: the group found king cobras, mouse deer, squirrels, monkeys — but no turtles.
Finally, on July 5, 2010, hiding from the dogs under a pile of dry leaves at the base of a rattan bush on the slope of a hill, was a single female C. picturata, seen for the first time in the wild. “I was totally amazed and elated,” said Tri Ly.
Three separate expeditions recovered a total of eight turtles, firmly establishing the Langbian plateau as their home. Unfortunately, the turtles’ habitat is being lost to agriculture and coffee plantations, but the findings are an essential first step toward conservation.
Beyond knowing what places need protection, conservationists now know where turtles bred in captivity can be released. Without this knowledge, C. picturata could end up in the conservation equivalent of life support, bred in captivity in perpetuity.
Stuart and Ly hope their efforts will inspire other biologists in southeast Asia, which is currently experiencing what’s known as the “Asian turtle crisis“: Millions of turtles are sent each year to China, threatening many species with extinction. At least three other box turtle species — C. zhoui, C. mccordi and C. yunnanensis — are known only from markets.
“It is hoped that focused field efforts such as ours will soon identify the mysterious origins of these other rare species that are known to scientists only by turtles bearing price tags,” wrote Stuart and Ly.
