Blanding's Turtle Emys blandingii  Holbrook, 1838
An adult specimen from Hennepin County, Minnesota Image © Suzanne L. Collins, 2003
Taxonomic Comments:
Feldman and Parham (2002 Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 22(3): 388-398) placed this species in the genus Emys Duméril 1806. Spinks, Phillip Q., & H. Bradley Shaffer (2009. Conflicting Mitochondrial and Nuclear Phylogenies for the Widely Disjunct Emys (Testudines: Emydidae) Species Complex, and What They Tell Us about Biogeography and Hybridization. Systematic Biology. 58(1): pp. 1-20), using mtDNA and nucleic DNA, demonstrated that the genus Emydoidea should be synonymized with the genus Emys Duméril 1806. Standard common name for Emys blandingii remains Blanding's Turtle.