Black soft-shell turtle

Description

Originally native to the lower Brahmaputra River,the only population ever reliably known consists of a small number of the species in a man-made pond which is part of the Bayazid Bastami shrine at Chittagong,where they are dependent on humans for survival.To the locals and worshipers,the black softshell turtle is known as mazari ("Mazar inhabitant");specimens from this shrine were used in the first scientific description.In a 2014 survey by Poribesh Banchao Andolon,a Bangladeshi private organization it was found that the amount of oxygen dissolved in the pond water was 2.01 mg/L,whereas the favorable level is 5 mg/L.In 2012,wildlife biologists of the Center for Advanced Research in Natural Resources and Management found a small population in the wild of Sylhet.Two tiny wild populations were discovered in Assam,in Kaziranga and in the Jia Bhoroli River which is a northern tributary of the Brahmaputra.Also,another temple population of these turtles was identified in the Kasopukhuri pond on Nilachal Hill,next to the Kamakhya Temple at Guwahati in Assam.