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Current Herpetology
Abstract
Abstract:
Partial skeletal remains of Mauremys reevesii, consisting of the right second and third costals of an individual, were discovered from late medieval deposit of an archaeological site in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Because the site was a local port town with relatively frequent commercial exchanges then, the turtle may have possibly been brought there through direct or indirect foreign trade in the 15th Century. Current Japanese populations of M. reevesii have generally been considered as descendants of artificially transported individuals from outside Japan in no earlier than the late Edo period (late 18th Century). However, the present finding suggests that the species was actually introduced to Japan in the late medieval period or even earlier.
We are grateful to H. Shirai, T. Yamamoto, B. Karakuchi, and D. Ito (Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of History) for allowing access to turtle skeletal remains excavated from the Kusado Sengen-chō site. We also thank R. Hirayama (Waseda University), S. Isaji (the Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba), T. Ishido (the Minamitane-cho Board of Education, Kumage), M. Shimamoto (Tohoku University) for allowing us to examine turtle fossils from the main islands of Japan and S. Kameda, J. Shiraishi, and K. Tokusawa (Okayama University of Science) and Y. Goto (Edogawa District, Tokyo) for providing us with pertinent literature. We also thank H. Ota (University of Hyogo/Museum of Nature and Human Activities, Hyogo), T. Hikida (Kyoto University), and D. Suzuki (Tokai University) for helpful comments. Y. Yasukawa (Takada Reptiles and Wildlife Research Institute, Okinawa) permitted us to examine a skeletal specimen of Mauremys nigricans in his care. The manuscript was greatly improved by comments from two anonymous referees. This study was partly supported by the JSPS KAKENHI Grant, number 15K07233 (to Naoki Kamezaki).
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