A rare yellow turtle was rescued by villagers from a pond in West Bengal this week.
The first one was spotted in Balasore district in the state of Odisha back in July. This is the second instance this year that a rare yellow turtle has been spotted in India.
The rescued rare turtle’s images were shared online by Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Debashish Sharma. He posted a few images of the reptile with its bright yellow shell on Twitter and said it was found in a pond in Burdwan and rescued. The yellow shelled turtle has been identified as an Indian Flapshell species.
“Today a yellow turtle was rescued from a pond in Burdwan, WB. It’s one kind of a rarely occurring Flapshell Turtle,” he wrote. In a follow-up tweet, he further attributed the turtle’s rare colouring is due to the “absence of tyrosine pigment,” and it is likely the outcome of some genetic mutation of a congenital disorder.
It's an albino kind whose peculiar yellow colour is may be bcoz of either some genetic mutation or congenital disorder due to absence of tyrosine pigment. @SudhaRamenIFS @drqayumiitk @wiiofficial1 @moefcc @susantananda3 @mvraoforindia pic.twitter.com/Yfhdu3D06t
— Debashish Sharma, IFS (@deva_iitkgp) October 27, 2020