Testudo is a genus of tortoises found in North Africa, Asia, and Europe. All species are under threat in the wild, mainly from habitat destruction.
They are small tortoises, ranging in length from 7 cm to 35 cm and in weight from 0.7 kg to 7 kg. Like most tortoises, they are herbivorous.
Classification
The classification of Testudo is uncertain. Highfield and Martin comment:
Synonymies on Testudo are notoriously difficult to compile with any degree of accuracy. The status of species referred have undergone a great many changes, each change introducing an additional level of complexity and making bibliographic research on the taxa extremely difficult. Most early and not a few later checklists contain a very high proportion of entirely spurious entries, and a considerable number of described species are now considered invalid -either because they are homonyms, non-binomial or for some other reason.
ITIS list five species in the genus, as of 1997:
Testudo graeca Linnaeus, 1758 (Greek Tortoise, Spur-Thighed Tortoise)
Testudo hermanni Gmelin, 1789 (Herman’s Tortoise)
Testudo horsfieldii Gray, 1844 (Russian Tortoise, Horsfield’s Tortoise)
Testudo kleinmanni Lortet, 1883 (Egyptian Tortoise)
Testudo marginata Schoepff, 1792 (Marginated Tortoise)
Khozatsky and Mlynarski (1966) argued that T. horsfieldii belonged in a new genus (Agrionemys) on the basis of the shape of its carapace and plastron.
Highfield and Martin argue that two subspecies of T. graeca should be elevated to species status:
Testudo zarudnyi Nikolski, 1896 (formerly T. g. zarudnyi, native to Eastern Iran).
Testudo ibera Pallas, 1814 (formerly T. g. ibera, native to the Caucasus).
Other proposed species include:
Testudo tabulata (Brazilian Tortoise)
Testudo werneri Perälä, 2001 (Negev Tortoise)
Also, there is the extinct Testudo atlas, which, unlike its modern relatives, was a gigantic creature.
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