South American slider

About the South American slider

Trachemys callirostris is a species of turtle in the family Emydidae found in Colombia and Venezuela. The species is divided into two subspecies: the Colombian slider (T. c. callirostris) and the Venezuelan slider (T. c. chichiriviche), both of which are found in watersheds draining into the Caribbean Sea.

The first description of the species was published by John Edward Gray in 1856, then under the name Emys callirostris. The species has since then undergone numerous reclassifications, being placed into the genus Trachemys by John B. Iverson in 1985, but then as a subspecies of the Pond slider. Michael E. Seidel classified the turtle as its own species in 2002, which was the first usage of the combination Trachemys callirostris. The name callirostris is derived from kallion, meaning beautiful in Greek, and rostrum, meaning snout in Latin.

There are two recognized subspecies: the Colombian slider (T. c. callirostris) and the Venezuelan slider (T. c. chichiriviche). The name chichiriviche is derived from the name of the hill in Falcón, Venezuela, where the first recorded specimen of the subspecies was found.

The carapace of the turtle's shell grows to... Wikipedia →