Terrapene ornata (Agassiz 1857)

Cistudo ornata Agassiz, 1857

[= Terrapene ornata (Agassiz, 1857); fide, Baur, 1891:191, Ward, 1978:217.1]

Agassiz, 1857, Contrib. Nat. Hist. U.S. America (Testudinata), p. 445, pl. 3: figs. 12–13.

Paralectotype: USNM 57 (alcoholic adult female, CL 95 mm), Yellowstone, collected by Ferdinand V. Hayden, date unknown, cataloged 14 Feb 1856 (see “Remarks”).

Type Locality: “From the Upper Missouri … and from Iowa” (see “Remarks”); first restricted to “Council Bluffs [Pottawattomie County], Iowa” by Smith and Taylor (1950b:36), later to “junction of the Platte and Missouri rivers” by Schmidt (1953:951), and finally to “Burlington [Des Moines County], Iowa,” the locality of the lectotype, MCZ 1536, by Smith and Smith (1980:587). See Smith and Smith (1980) for a discussion of the history of the type locality designations and earlier erroneous restrictions.

Other Type Material: Lectotype: MCZ 1536, designated by Smith and Smith (1980:587).

Etymology: The name ornata is from the Latin ornatus, decorated or adorned, referring to the streaked pattern of the carapace.

Remarks: Agassiz (1857:445) did not record the museum numbers of the type series of Cistudo ornata [= Terrapene ornata] but stated that he had “examined many hundred specimens of the genus” [Cistudo= Terrapene], so the exact number of individuals constituting the original type series is unknown, and this has led to confusion. He called Cistudo ornata “the north-western type” of Cistudo to differentiate it from his “north-eastern type” [C. virginea] and “western and south-western type” [C. triunguis]. Agassiz was clear, however, in recording the type localities of the specimens of C. ornata that he had examined: “I have received specimens from the Upper Missouri [River] through the Smithsonian Institution, and from Iowa through Dr. J. Rauch.” Cochran (1961:229) listed USNM 57, 7541, 7542, and 7547 as syntypes in the National Museum, and Ward (1978:1) also recognized these specimens as syntypes of Cistudo ornata. USNM 7542, collected by Dr. Robert W. Kennicott in Illinois, has a catalog notation by George R. Zug stating: “probably not a syntype, since not from a locality mentioned in the type description.” We agree with Zug’s conclusion and have removed USNM 7542 from the syntopic series. USNM 7541 (“Southern Boundary Kansas”) was originally cataloged as four specimens, but Cochran (1961) indicated that only the one specimen currently carrying that number was a syntype. One of the other original three specimens of USNM 7541 was recataloged as USNM 131837, one is now BMNH 1873.8.13.3, and the fate of the last specimen is unknown. In addition to USNM 7541 (including USNM 131837 and BMNH 1873.8.13.3), both USNM 7547 and 7740 from the Republican River, Kansas, have been annotated as possible syntypes in the USNM catalog; however, locality data for these records is inconsistent with the type locality given by Agassiz (1857:445). The entry for paralectotype USNM 57 has the notation “Agassiz type” in the catalog. The locality for USNM 57 in the catalog, “Yellowstone,” is both confusing and questionable (Ward, 1978) because it is different from the type locality “Upper Missouri.” However, Baird gave the locality of USNM 57 as “Upper Missouri” (Herber, 1963:121) in a letter to Agassiz dated 23 Feb 1856, which clearly established the association of USNM 57 to the type locality. Maxwell et al. (2003:104) briefly reviewed the published reports of Terrapene ornata from southwest Montana and concluded that the reports are based either on translocated animals or on paralectotype USNM 57, a locality record they also regard as suspect. They conclude that USNM 57 is likely the specimen of Cistudo reported by Ferdinand Hayden (1858, 1863) from “the mouth of the Powder River” (a tributary of the Yellowstone River), but that the locality listed is either incorrect or represents a shipping locality. However, on the basis of the locality reported in Hayden (1858:104) and the data recorded in the museum catalog, we see no reason to doubt the locality record.