IS THE FLOKIDA BOX TOETOISE A DISTmCT SPECIES? 



By EiNAll LONNBEKG. 



In my "Notes on Reptiles and Batrachiaus collected in Florida in 

 189li and 1893," ^ I recorded Tcrrapcne Carolina (Linniieus) among- the 

 Testudinata of my collection. Recently this form was divided into sev- 

 eral "species," and from Florida a "new species" was described nnder 

 the name of Terrapene hauri, Taylor.'^ It is therefore natural that 1 should 

 be curious to learn to which of the six North American "species" my 

 Florida specimen belonged, and for that reason I re-examined a skeleton 

 of a specimen caught not far from Apopka, Orange County, Florida. 

 It seems that two of the most important characters are osteological, 

 namely, first, jiresence and different development or absence of the zygo- 

 matic arch; second, number of phalanges of fingers and toes. Hence 

 one ought to be able to classify a skeleton without difficulty. My 

 specimen had the hind limb with only three clawed digits and would 

 thus, according to Taylor, be T. hanrl, or T. mexicana, or T. triumjim. 

 The number of the phalanges on the fore foot are 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, and on 

 the hind foot 2, 3, 3, 2, 1 (0?). This indicates T. hauri, but T. bauri 

 should have a complete zygomatic arch, and my specimen has none. 

 In tact, there is not the slightest rudiment left of any quadratqjugal, so 

 that in this respect my specimen agrees with T. ornata, a species with 

 four clawed digits on the hind limb and quite different number of pha- 

 langes (fore foot, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2; hind foot, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1). The osteological 

 characters of this Florida specimen are therefore not identical with 

 those of any hitherto described " species." Still I do not wish to create 

 a new one. The color of my specimen corresponds very closely to that 

 of T. hauri:' The ground color of the carapace is dark brown with 

 yellow keel, yellow radiating lines with a few spots of the same color. 

 The plastron is yellow with mostly transverse, brown markings. The 

 length of carapace is lOo mm. 



It would appear that Taylor established the species T. bauri on only 

 one specimen. Under such circumstances the following possibilities 



'Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XVII, 1894, pp. .317-339. 



-W. E. Taylor: The box tortoi.sc8 of North America, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XVII, 



1894, pp. 573-588. 



' T. bauri aud ornata resemble each other in color. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. XIX— No. 1107. 



253 



