ZSI brings out book on chelonian taxonomy

Kolkata: Researchers and scientists at Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have come out with a first of its kind book that will act as a valuable source of information and reference book, particularly for chelonian taxonomists and biodiversity conservationists, from India and abroad.

"The book is a result of an exhaustive study spanning a period of nearly two years. 19 species of the chelonians with a total related species of 50 types that have evolved historically over a period of 200 years, have been recorded in the book. There are studies involving tigers, leopards and lions but there has hardly been any study on turtles. This prompted us to take up chelonian species for our research material," said Dr. Vikas Kumar, officer-in-charge of the Centre for DNA Taxonomy of ZSI, one of the authors of the book.

It may be mentioned that turtles, terrapins and tortoises belong to the most seriously endangered vertebrate group worldwide. The Northeastern region of India that shares two biodiversity hotspots, is regarded as a treasure trove of chelonian biodiversity.

The book, titled Chelonian Types of National Zoological Collections has been recently released by the Union cabinet minister for Science, Technology and Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan at New Delhi in the presence of ZSI director Kailash Chandra.

Along with Chandra and Kumar, ZSI scientists Shantanu Kundu and B.H.C.K. Murthy have co-authored the books. Among the species of the chelonians that find place in the book, 26 are found in India while six are non-natives. Interestingly, maximum types are in the threatened category.

Dr. Uwe Fritz, Extraordinary Professor, University of Leipzig Museum of Zoology and Director, Senckenberg Natural History Collections, Dresden, Germany, in his foreword for the book has written: "The whereabouts of name-bearing types is for obvious reasons of paramount importance for science and nomenclature. Any researcher working on taxonomic revisions need to verify which taxon is represented by the name-bearing types in the respective group. However, many historical type specimens of animals have been lost or destroyed and it is sometimes a time consuming process to trace because they are often distributed over different collections and museums worldwide. Therefore, any summary of the types of a certain collection is most welcome."

The book mentions the taxonomic rank, scientific name, common name, habitats, conservation status, morphological characters, osteology, morphometric measurements, distribution, photographs of live specimens as well as museum collections and other collateral information of the chelonian types in National Zoological Collections.