In 1997, a rare turtle with a bright speckless yellow body and pink eyes was spotted for the first time on the west coast of India in Gujarat. Later, similar-looking turtles appeared in Bangladesh, Arakan, and Myanmar.
Almost two decades later, in August 2020, several reports of the yellow turtle in Nepal came forward. The findings were published in a paper claiming it to be only the fifth time the turtle was ever seen. Then, again, in October 2020, a tweet from Debasinahish Sharma of the Indian Forest Service revealed another appearance of the yellow turtle in Burdwan, West Bengal. It was the second time in just a few months that the species resurfaced in India.
The yellow colour of the shell and its body makes the turtle rare. However, the species itself is not rare in India. It’s an anomaly. The yellow-bodied reptile is one of the many Indian Flap Shell Turtles or Lissemys punctata andersoni.
An ordinary Flap Shell Turtle is a small turtle, usually brown, with yellow spots on the shell and a light-coloured underbody.
In 1975, CITES Appendix I included the Indian Flap Shell turtle at the request of Bangladesh; however, assessments of the literature and accessible data revealed no evidence to justify this endangered designation. As a result, it was removed from the endangered species list in 1983. However, its position under CITES Appendix I remains unchanged.
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