Thai Turtle Rediscovery
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 13th, 2007
Thai villagers have caught a river terrapin turtle that was thought to be extinct in the country, the World Wide Fund for Nature-Thailand announced this week.
The female turtle - known for its egg-shaped shell and upturned snout - was found January 3, 2007, in a mangrove canal in Phang Nga province on the country’s Andaman coast. It was the first time the turtle species has been found in Thailand in two decades.
The mangrove terrapin (Batagur baska) found is pictured below:
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Very good news indeed! What are they going to do with it?
Welcome back little terp.
Good news. It might be the angle but it looks like they might naturally look like they have a smile on their face.
Here’s hoping many more will be found. Perhaps a male companion for her? Anyway terrific news!
There used to be plenty of terrapins in the ponds in my backyard. Now though, houses replaced the ponds. So no more terrapins and big tortoises and big snakeheads and big pythons!
Hello all, I am new and excited to be here. One comment I wanted to make is that south east Asia has the most diversity of turtle species in the world. Unfortunately just about every species is endangered and some may already be extinct. This is all due to human activity. It may well be that these beautiful and harmless creatures that have been on earth since before the dinosaurs may disappear or at best become cryptids.
Correct me if I’m wrong … but if I’m not mistaken, 99.9% of animals or plants that ever lived are now extinct.
While I’m sure humans have been the cause of some species extinctions, remarking that present potential extinction is all due to human activity is more than just a stretch…
Maybe someone can explain what happened to the 99+%, that are already extinct.
shovethenos, that’s what I reckoned when I first set eyes on it. It certainly has an unusual appearance.
Maybe I did not make my comment clear enough. When I said that this was due to human activity I am referring solely to the situation turtles face in Asia at the moment. All turtle species were common in Asia until only within the last 10 or so years ago. The decline in the number has been directly linked by researchers to overexploitation by people. Turtles are traditionally used as both food and medicine in many Asian countries. The current problem seems to stem from the rise in the economies in some of these countries, especially China. This has produced a greater demand for turtles hence their decline. I realize this is off topic (cryptids) but these could be the animals are grandchildren will be trying to prove still exist.
99.9% of all the animals that ever lived are indeed extinct, and they did so over a period of roughly 4 billion years, punctuated here and there by mass extinctions in which the rate of extinction was greatly accelerated. The current rate of extinction, almost, but not always, due directly to human activity, is such that even many conservative biologists are willing to admit that we are in a new period of mass extinction. Previously, it took huge balls of rock falling from the sky to cause this much devastation, but human greed, and perhaps more importantly human apathy, may prove equally devastating. The amount of evidence we have that humans are drastically changing the planet is simply staggering, and yet so many still try to sweep it under the carpet. Worse, what has been so far experienced is likely just the tip of a rapidly-melting iceberg, especially if it continues to go unrecognized, and unchecked…
…and I’m an optimist.
It does look like a smile on its face, but rest assured, this species has nothing to really smile about. It is nearly extinct and probably will be, permanently, before long. What Mnynames said is a very good point. Humans are doing the job of what once took catastrophic events to achieve. A lot of species, such as frogs, are facing incredible acceleration in rate of extinctions. Most of the world’s fisheries are going to be depleted in the next 20 years, arctic life is already being devastated, rain forests are being cut down at a staggering pace, humans are encroaching ever further into once wild lands. There is also the unfortunate practice of “bioprospecting” going on, wherein corporations use vast amounts of money looking for plants and other lifeforms with medical benefits that they can exploit. I hope people do not continue to sweep all this under the carpet or our descendants are going to have to deal with it and the only animals they are going to see are the fake mock ups down at the Natural History museum. Jeez, this could even happen in our own lifetimes.