Talk:Eastern long-necked turtle

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Turtle or tortoise?

I am no expert, but in 53 years in Eastern Australia I have never before heard of this tortoise being called a turtle. Also, I thought Long-neck tortoise was the most usual name, not snake-neck. I hope someone can clear this up. Alpheus 21:53, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I just had a discussion with veterinarians at Healesville Sanctuary and 'snake-neck' didn't come up. It's definitely a turtle though. I think the article needs to be renamed. --jjron (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, further research reveals several 'common' names for this. Snake-neck is used. Eastern is probably used more than Common. For the record I've added the four most common names to the first sentence (Common snake-neck, Eastern long-neck, Eastern snake-neck, and Common snake-neck), and hyphenated them all as per the Australian Museum Encyclopedia of Australian Reptiles. --jjron (talk) 07:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

what name?

The second paragraph references the "common snakeback turtle." I don't see the name "snakeback" elsewhere. Is this a type-o? 206.53.197.24 (talk) 20:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• This article like many on Australian Turtles needs a complete rewrite. The general common name for this species is Eastern Long-Neck Turtle or ELN for short. Australia has no tortoises that is a misname that became popular a few decades ago. The Chelids are turtles however, tortoises refer to members of the family Testidinidae such as Galapagos Tortoises. Faendalimas (talk) 21:46, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

TTWG gives only Eastern Snake-necked turtle and Common Snake-necked turtle. Lots of turtle articles need a complete rewrite; start by getting agreement on a name. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:34, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a wide ranging species, as such common names tend to be variable, hence my preference for scientific names. Internationally there is a tendency to call these turtles snake-necks, wihin Australia they tend to be called long-necks, this species is the Eastern or Common. It will depend on where you are within its range as to which name is more common. By the way I am aware that scientific names also change but at least they are tied to a specimen and usually a species. Anyway, if you take the literal meaning of its scientific name longicollis that means long-neck. Its name literally means the "Long-necked Little Chelus" which is a reference to its earlier described relative from South America the Mata mata. In the end though its a common name, if you insist on using one I suggest the one used in most of the literature would be best which is Eastern Long-neck Turtle with a close second being the Common Snake-neck turtle. Cheers, Faendalimas (talk) 04:47, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Common it not common. In fact I find not one scholarly source with 'Common snakeneck turtle' or variations thereof - Kennett excepted. Eastern long-necked is the most common, so I'm happy with that. So, can you offer any explanation to why the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group have missed the 'long' name in this case? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 13:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm more supportive of using Chelodina longicollis as the title and article name, most if not all articles which has a species with more then one name (common or not) use the "scientific name". Scholar is a useless tool (useful for citing online sources) since most sources which use one of the many names are offline, overseas sources are also hopeless as they will only list a limited amount of names. Bidgee (talk) 15:20, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I can see the desire to use the scientific name, but Wikipedia being a general Encyclopedia has decided for fauna to use the common name (see WP:Fauna name and WP:COMMONNAME). With that being the case, consistency within articles reinforces the use of common name usage in prose. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:24, 26 December 2010 (UTC).

Those are only useful if there is one common name or a common name which is more common but in this case Eastern and Common are in fact both are very common (google search is useless in this case) depending in what location/region/state you are in. Bidgee (talk) 16:33, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

As for why the TTWG missed ELN, pretty easy as I said, internationally they tend to be called snake-necks, three authors are american, the last thai. This is a common name and they don't concern themselves with it, when it was reviewed Australian's such as myself, Kuchling, Georges etc also were more interested in the scientific names being right. We did not notice the common names. That's the reality of it. Australian book's such as Cogger's "Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia" use ELN, most reptile enthusiasts in Australia use the name ELN. I think a country should name its own animals. This is not worth arguing over though, its a common name. Wikipedia wants common names when they are consistent and well established. If anything that this discussion is occurring shows the name is not consistent. Considering this maybe it would be better to rename the article Chelodina longicollis and ensure all combinations of common name are there. It has been called Chelodina longicollis since 1794 so the name has the longist consisent usage. Cheers, Faendalimas (talk) 16:51, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Faendalimas claims above that "Australia has no tortoises that is a misname that became popular a few decades ago" but that is hardly the case - Waite has only "Long-necked Tortoise" for C. longicollis in his 1929 book, The Reptiles and Amphibians of South Australia, and Cogger has both "Eastern snake-necked turtle or Long-necked tortoise" in his Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia (1983, Revised Ed.), while Daniels, in Adelaide: Nature of a City (2006) mentions only "long-necked tortoise". It seems that this is the most popular common name here in South Australia (though I have seen "snake-necked tortoise" in one local environmental management plan written, I seem to recall, by someone originally from one of the eastern states); and "tortoise" has been in use here for a very long time, and never "turtle".

In view of this plethora of common names, I support Faendalimas's suggestion that the article be renamed as Chelodina longicollis. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 09:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Well my claim above is based on the definitions of the words turtle and tortoise. Australian freshwater turtles are members of the family Chelidae and as such are actually turtles as all tortoises belong to the family Testudinidae. This is a biological definition, and is as it is, irrespective of local customs. By the way I am actually Australian and a biologist and worked on turtles there for the last 30 years. I am aware of the terms used by Waite and many other authors over the years, the usage of the term tortoise in Australia has largely been perpetuated by Cann in several of his publications. But this has largely been recognised as incorrect these days. If you want to go right back the original name for this species is long-neck tortoise that is by Shaw in 1794. However we have to keep with the times also. As I said, most use the term Eastern Long-Neck these days or ELN for short, adding turtle to the end of this, I prefer scientific names however this has been argued many times and I am doubtful that this species will ever be listed by its scientific name, even though I would actually support it. As far as the plethora of common names this species has by far the best known, both locally and internationally is the Eastern Long-Neck Turtle, so I think its easier just to leave this one as it is. Cheers, Faendalimas ^talk 15:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Faendalimas, the use of "tortoise" is still widespread in South Australia', as can be seen from these two stories which appeared in the local media (here and here), about ELNs suffering from being weighed down by tubeworm encrustations when salinity levels rose in the Coorong and Lower Lakes during the recent drought, and being rescued by volunteers.

I agree with your earlier comment that "I think a country should name its own animals". However I would go a bit further. by saying that in WP articles on Australian endemic species there should be more emphasis on the habitat of the species, as well as on the environmental historical understanding of them. It's important not only because WP is used by many as a primary reference, but also because of the rise of citizen science and the role of volunteers in local conservation projects, who will undertake research into historical records which often use obsolete terms - I got into this discussion just now as the result of trying to clean up and put links into such a list in the Para Wirra Recreation Park article.

It's for this reason that (along with User:Bilby) I'm currently trying to initiate a WP:GLAM natural history project with the SA Museum. One aspect of this project may be to have a closer integration of WP with the Atlas of Living Australia, which I note uses the species name for its Chelodina (Chelodina) longicollis page.

At the very least I suggest that there should be a redirect page on WP from Eastern long-necked tortoise, and on the article page some mention of the "... tortoise" names, which needn't be as extensive as the explanation of the different Australian/UK/USA English usages in the generic Tortoise and Turtle articles. Cheers,Bahudhara (talk) 04:47, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

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