Pelomedusa galeata orangensis Hewitt, 1935

Fritz, Uwe, Petzold, Alice, Kehlmaier, Christian, Kindler, Carolin, Campbell, Patrick, Hofmeyr, Margaretha D. & Branch, William R., 2014, Disentangling the Pelomedusa complex using type specimens and historical DNA (Testudines: Pelomedusidae), Zootaxa 3795 (5), pp. 501-522 : 518

Pelomedusa galeata orangensis Hewitt, 1935

Hewitt (1935: pp. 332–335) based the description of his new subspecies Pelomedusa galeata orangensis on several specimens from distinct collecting sites in South Africa. However, on page 333 he explicitly named a male shown in his plate XXXII, fig. 4, “the type”, so that it is clear that this specimen represents in accordance with Article 73.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999) the holotype of Pelomedusa galeata orangensis . This terrapin was in the Kimberley Museum (now McGregor Museum, Kimberley) and originates “presumably from the Kimberley neighbourhood” ( Hewitt 1935: p. 333). Following Mertens (1937: p. 139) and Loveridge (1941: p. 474), Pelomedusa galeata orangensis was later synonymized with the nominotypical subspecies of the helmeted terrapin, if the species was regarded as polytypic.

The holotype of Pelomedusa galeata orangensis could not be located in the McGregor Museum (B. Wilson, pers. comm.), and must be considered lost. Efforts to sequence mtDNA of two paratypes from the collection of the Port Elizabeth Museum (PEM R9404, Warrenton, Northern Cape; PEM R9408, Thaba ‘Nchu, Free State) failed. However, genetic data were available for several South African localities encircling the type locality Kimberley ( Vargas-Ramírez et al. 2010; this study), and all South African sequences correspond to lineage IX sensu Vargas- Ramírez et al. (2010). Consequently, we identify Pelomedusa galeata orangensis with this lineage. If lineage IX should be deemed taxonomically distinct, Pelomedusa galeata orangensis Hewitt, 1935 becomes a subjective junior synonym of Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792 .