2 
(Vanzolini, 1981: xxv) to consider Spix's "flumen Amazonum" as the 
stretch of the Rio Amazonas between the mouth of the Negro, at 
03°08' S, 59°55'W, and the mouth of the Furo do Tajapuru, at 01°02 , S, 
51°2 , W. Until sound reasons justify a restriction, I believe the 
type locality should be left as vague as that. 
The distribution of the species in Brasil is treated by 
Pritchard and Trebbau in two places. First ( loc . cit .: 213), as 
part of the general discussion: "G. carbonaria appears to be absent 
from the middle and upper Rio Amazon. There are no records for 
Peru or Ecuador, nor for the western states of Brasil (Acre, 
Rondonia, and Amazonas), apart from a single specimen (MZUSP 2275) 
from Nova Olinda, Amazonas. Conceivably, this locality refers 
instead to Nova Olinda in the state of Ceara, rather than 
Amazonas." 
Second, in Appendix A, "Locality records", they say (loc. 
crt.: 391): "Note: All Amazonas records are suspect. There are no 
recent records for Manaus, and Manaus was for years an exporting 
center for wildlife from a very large area of Brasil. Villa Bella 
is a town in Departmento Beni, Bolivia. "Amazonas" probably refers 
to the river system rather than the state. MZUSP 2275, reportedly 
from Nova Olinda, Amazonas, is probably from Nova Olinda, Ceara." 
MZUSP 2275 was bought by me on 21 February 1972, for the 
expedition's (EPA: Expedigao Permanente da Amazonia) kitchen, at 
Nova Olinda, on the Rio Madeira (03°53'S, 59°06'W). Its field 
number is 72.0417. Routinely questioned, the seller said that he 
had caught the animal in his own plot of land, near the town. Were 
he lying, the possibility is still remote that the specimen was 
imported from Nova Olinda, Ceara, more than 2 >500 km to the east 
and not on the Amazon river system. 
I find it curious that Pritchard and Trebbau (who could have 
settled the matter with a letter to me) chose to question the 
locality, rather than the identification. According to them, 
denticulata would be normal in the Madeira; as a matter of form, I 
checked the identification. 
MZUSP 2275 consists of the shell and head, the latter in 
alcohol; this is our routine for chelonians used as food. The 
original identification was made by Regina Lucia Spieker, who 
curates our chelonians. There are at times difficult specimens of 
Geochelone . but the present one, examined against Williams's 1960 
paper, came out as perfect carbonaria on all counts, even to the 
constriction of the carapace characteristic of males. 
