First documented record of the Spotted Northern Indian Flap-shelled Turtle, (Lissemys punctata andersoni Webb 1980), from Aligarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India

The Spotted Northern Indian Flap-shelled Turtle (L.p. andersoni) occurs in Pakistan, northern India, and southern Nepal, east into Bangladesh within the Indus and Ganges-Brahmaputra drainage systems, and also is found in northwestern coastal Myanmar (Bhupathy et al. 2014).At 1403 h on 1 June 2025, we observed one adult and six juvenile L. p. andersoni in a 3-m wide drainage canal adjacent to Sir Zia-ud-din Hall, Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh (Fig. 1).The weather was cloudy and the ambient temperature was ~36 °C.Twelve additional individuals were observed in other accessible locations of the drainage canal on the next day.Despite the visibly degraded water quality, the turtles were swimming actively in the canal, feeding and frequently raising their heads above the surface.The canal was severely polluted with anthropogenic wastes including poly- First Documented Record of the SpottedNorthern Indian Flap-shelled Turtle, Lissemys punctata andersoni (Webb 1980), from Aligarh District, Uttar Pradesh, India