Red-footed Tortoise - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

Red-footed tortoises have many common names: red-leg, red-legged, or red-foot tortoise (often without the hyphen) and the savanna tortoise, as well as local names, such as carumbe or karumbe, which means 'slow moving' (Brazil, Paraguay), wayapopi or morrocoy (Venezuela, Colombia), and variations of jabuti such as japuta and jabuti-piranga (Brazil, Argentina).

All turtles and tortoises were originally assigned to the genus Testudo (named by Carl Linnaeus in 1758) for a short time, but it soon became the term for turtles with high-domed shells, elephantine legs, and completely terrestrial habits—the tortoises. In 1835, Leopold Fitzinger used Geochelone to differentiate some non-Mediterranean tortoises, apparently based on size and lack of specific identifying characteristics such as the hinged shell in the African hingeback tortoises. He used the term Chelonoidis as a subgenera for the species from South America. Few people used these terms until they were resurrected by Hewitt in 1933 and Loveridge and Williams in 1957.

In 1982, Roger Bour and Charles Crumly each separated Geochelone into different genera based on anatomic differences, especially in the skulls. That resulted in the formation or restoration of several generas: Aldabrachelys, Astrochelys, Cylindraspis, Indotestudo, Manouria, and Chelonoidis. Chelonoidis was distinguished from other Geochelone by their South American location, as well as the absence of the nuchal scute (the marginal centered over the neck) and the presence of a large, undivided supracaudal (the scute or scutes directly over the tail) as well as differences in the skull. Many of these genera names are still debated; for example, there is no specific definition of Geochelone, and Chelonoidis is primarily used for geography rather than unique anatomic characteristics.

The species name carbonaria means 'coal-like' referring to a dark coal with glowing patches. It was originally identified by Johann Baptist von Spix in 1824. The holotype was kept in the Zoologishen Sammlung des Bayerishchen Staates in Munich, Germany, but was lost. Paulo Vanzolini believes it may have come from near the city of Manaus, Brazil, on the Rio Negro. There are currently no subspecies of red-footed tortoise, although many believe the species has five or more variants that may be subspecies or even separate species.