Aspects of the Reproductive Biology of Chitra vandijki with a Description of Neonates

Abstract. The Burmese Narrow-headed Softshell Turtle (Chitra vandijki McCord & Pritchard, 2003) is a large (straight-line carapace length [CL] to ca. 1000 mm) softshell turtle endemic to Myanmar where confirmed records are available from the Ayeyarwady-Chindwin River system, and lower Sittang and Thanlwin rivers (Kuchling et al. 2004, Platt et al. 2005, 2014, 2018). Chitra vandijki is subject to intense subsistence exploitation by rural villagers, large numbers are taken for illegal export to wildlife markets in southern China, eggs are widely collected for domestic consumption, and habitat degradation due to gold-mining and conversion of sandbanks to seasonal agricultural fields is occurring on many rivers (Kuchling et al., 2004, Platt et al. 2014, 2017b). Consequently, populations of C. vandijki throughout Myanmar have declined precipitously (Platt et al. 2014), even within some protected areas (Platt et al. 2017b). As a result, C. vandijki is now in the process of being classified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Redlist and ranked among the 25 most endangered chelonians in the world (Stanford et al. 2018).