B R E V I O R A useiim of Comparative Zoology US ISSN 0006-9698 Cambridge, Mass. 2 February 1994 / Number 498 CHELID TURTLES OF THE AUSTRALASIAN ARCHIPELAGO: 11. A NEW SPECIES OF CHELODINA FROM ROTI ISLAND, INDONESIA Anders G. J. Rhodin' Abstract. A new species of Chelodina (Testudines: Pleurodira: Chelidae) is described from Roti Island, west of Timor, East Nusa Tenggara Province, in the southeastern Indonesian Archipelago. The species is endemic to Roti, a small and relatively xeric island. It is most similar and most closely related to Chelodina phtchardi from Papua New Guinea and C. longicollis from Australia, less closely related to C. novaeguineae and C reimanni from New Guinea. INTRODUCTION The side-necked turtles of the family Chelidae that inhabit the Australasian Archipelago of eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea remain one of the least well known turtle faunas of the world. Until recently only two species of the snake-necked genus Chelodina were known from the regions north of Australia: Chel-odina novaeguineae Boulenger, 1888 and Chelodina siebenrocki Werner, 1901. Since 1975, systematic studies have revealed an additional three species: Chelodina parkeri Rhodin and Mitter-meier, 1976, C/z^/o<a'//7ar£'/m(2««/Philippen and Grossman, 1990, and Chelodina pritchardi Rhodin, 1993. The last of these, from the Kemp Welch River of southeastern Papua New Guinea, was described in the first paper of this series on the chelid turtles of the Australasian Archipelago. In this second paper of the series, I describe another new species of Chelodina, this time from Roti Island, west of Timor in southeastern Indonesia. The first species of Chelodina to be described from anywhere in the Australasian Archipelago was C novaeguineae Boulenger, j^ ' Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachu-setts, and Chelonian Research Foundation, Lunenburg, Massachusetts.
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