Critically Endangered
Flat-backed spider tortoise
Pyxis planicauda
The flat-backed spider tortoise, more called the flat-tailed tortoise, and Madagascan flat-tailed tortoise, is a tortoise that belongs to the family Testudinidae.
Appearance
Its upper-shell (carapace) and tail are outstandingly flatter than the common tortoise. Its carapace is patterned, with each scute ranging in color from light brown to yellow center and a dark brown to black outline. In older tortoise, an additional yellow border can be seen that surrounds the dark outline.
Range and habitat
The flat-backed spider tortoise is confined to lowland fragments of dry, deciduous forest, found only on the west coast of Madagascar. It is concentrated between the Monrondava and Tsirbihina rivers. The forests inhabited by the flat-backed spider tortoise grow on loose sandy soils and the tortoises take shelter amongst the leaf litter of the forest floor during their inactive seasons.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
Due to the specifications of its habitat, the flat-backed spider tortoise is classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. Due to its habitat restrictions, the flat-backed spider tortoise is considered to be critically endangered. Its major threat comes from habitat loss due to deforestation, particularly from burning and clearing for agricultural lands/cattle grazing, highway development, mining, and petroleum exploration.
Another threat is collection for the pet trade. Pet trade is estimated to have removed about 4,000 adults during 2000 to 2002, representing 20–40% of the total number of adults (depending on the estimated population of adults).
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Flat-backed spider tortoise is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Flat-backed spider tortoise, Wikidata item Q1426275. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
