The Holotype of

Testudo cartilaginea

and the Lectotype of

Trionyx javanicus
- R.Bour -

The specific name is mis-spelled (“bodderti”) in the caption.
name for T. cartilaginea: Trionyx stellatus, which was considered as a species of its own (GEOFFROY 1809a: 365, 1809b: 13). Moreover,
GEOFFROY revealed that “c’est sur l’individu même de BODDAERT que j’en ai donné les caractères: il a passé, avec le cabinet du Stathouder, au Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle” [it is the very same BODDAERT
specimen of which I supplied characteristics; passed with the
Stathouder cabinet to the Natural History Museum] (Fig. 2). In other
terms, it was one of the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars. The diagnosis by GEOFFROY was almost entirely based on the presence of star-like spots on the rear part of the shell; this pattern is quite obvious in
BODDAERT’s plate.

SCHWEIGGER (1812: 328) added that the young specimen was preserved in alcohol (“Pullus in spiritu vini conservatus”), and
confirmed that it was sized from Dutch collections (“olim Hagae Comitum asservatum”) [formerly kept in The Hague]. He provided several measurements, including a shell length of 3 [French] inches (81 mm = 3.19"), a shell width of 2 inches 7 lines (69.7 mm = 2.74"), a bony disk of 1 inches 10 lines (49.5 mm = 1.95").

In a manuscript, SCHWEIGGER (1809; Fig. 4) described a new species, Amyda javanica, corrected in Trionyx javanicus because “Monsieur GEOFFROY vient de me dire que ce genre a été fait par lui, il y a plusieurs mois, dans un mémoire qui doit paraître dans l’ouvrage de la commission d’Egypte. Il se propose d’en donner un extrait dans les annales du muséum. Je supprime donc le nom d’Amyda et
j’adopterai celui que M. GEOFFROY proposera, ainsi qu’il le désire.” [Monsieur GEOFFROY has just informed me that this genus was erected by him several months ago, in a memoir to be published in the
work of the Egypt Commission. He set himself to give an excerpt in the annals of the museum.
Therefore, I suppress the name Amyda and adopt the one to be proposed by Mr. GEOFFROY, according to his wish]. The description was based on a single specimen, brought back in 1807 from Java by
JEAN-BAPTISTE LESCHENAULT DE LA TOUR (1773–1826), who had spent three years on the island. Amyda cartilaginea was credited to “LECHENAULT”(sic).

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