Disentangling the Pelomedusa complex using type specimens and historical DNA (Testudines: Pelomedusidae) Author Fritz, Uwe Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, 01109 Dresden, Germany uwe.fritz@senckenberg.de Author Petzold, Alice Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, 01109 Dresden, Germany Author Kehlmaier, Christian Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, 01109 Dresden, Germany Author Kindler, Carolin Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, A. B. Meyer Building, 01109 Dresden, Germany Author Campbell, Patrick Department of Zoology, Darwin Centre (DC 1), Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW 7 5 BD, England Author Hofmeyr, Margaretha D. Chelonian Biodiversity and Conservation, Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X 17, Bellville 7535, South Africa Author Branch, William R. Department of Herpetology, Port Elizabeth Museum, P. O. Box 13147, Humewood 6013, South Africa & Department of Zoology, P. O. Box 77000, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth 6031, South Africa Corresponding author. E-mail: uwe. fritz @ senckenberg. de text Zootaxa 2014 2014-05-15 3795 5 501 522 journal article 5606 10.11646/zootaxa.3795.5.1 27b8f170-95d1-4132-a493-c0b78c109163 1175-5326 4915064 3034E613-829A-4E56-A860-CA2A7C23B8FA Pelomedusa nigra Gray, 1863 Based on three syntypes from Natal, Gray (1863) described the new species Pelomedusa nigra . Boulenger (1889) lists these specimens as k , l and m in his “ Catalogue of the Chelonians, Rhynchocephalians, and Crocodiles of the British Museum (Natural History) ”. Today, these mounted dry specimens are catalogued under the numbers BMNH 1849.1.30.27 and BMNH 1862.12.4.4–5 (the latter re-registered as BMNH 1947.3.5.80–81). Pelomedusa nigra was soon synonymized with Pelomedusa galeata ( Strauch 1865 : p. 111; Boulenger 1880 : p. 151, 1889: p. 198) or Pelomedusa subrufa ( Mertens 1937 : p. 139; Loveridge 1941 : p. 474), until Bour (1986 : p. 37) resurrected it in a footnote as a subspecies of Pelomedusa subrufa . However, following Gasperetti et al. (1993) most authors abandoned the usage of any subspecies of Pelomedusa subrufa ( cf . Boycott & Bourquin 2008 ). The three syntypes of Pelomedusa nigra were examined for the present study and tissue for genetic investigation was extracted. We designate hereby the oldest specimen, BMNH 1849.1 .30.27 (adult male, straight carapacial length 16.19 cm ; Fig. 6 , top), as lectotype of this taxon . A fragment of the 12S rRNA gene could be sequenced from all three type specimens. In phylogenetic analyses ( Fig. 1 ), these sequences cluster with high support within lineage IX from South Africa . Moreover, the three type sequences are identical with a 12S sequence of a fresh sample from the same geographical source region (MTD T 5509, Ndumo, KwaZulu-Natal ). Since we identify Testudo galeata Schoepff, 1792 with lineage IX, Pelomedusa nigra Gray, 1863 would become a subjective junior synonym of that name, if lineage IX should be considered taxonomically distinct.