The Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is an extremely rare species of softshell turtle found in Vietnam and China. It is also known as the Red River giant softshell turtle, Shanghai softshell turtle, or Swinhoe's softshell turtle. In Chinese, it is known as the speckled softshell turtle (Chinese: 斑鱉; Pinyin: bān bīe). Only four living individuals are known and it is listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List. It is hoped that a pair at Suzhou Zoo in China will breed.
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Famous quotes containing the words yangtze, giant and/or turtle:
“Bodhidharma sailing the Yangtze on a reed
Lenin in a sealed train through Germany
Hsuan Tsang, crossing the Pamirs
Joseph, Crazy Horse, living the last free
starving high-country winter of their tribes.
Surrender into freedom revolt into slavery—”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)
“So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,—
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)