Riding my motorbike along highway 12 towards Chumphae, Khon Kaen, one very early morning nearly ended in disaster. A terrapin ran straight in front of me and I had to do an emergency stop and swerved all over the road. I managed to get a few photos of him before he disappeared into the grass verge. Both unharmed and a new species for me.
Its shell was around 25-30 cms. Doing a little research, it looked like the Malayan Snail-Eating Turtle, (also known as the Rice-Field Terrapin), Malayemys subtrijuda. However, the markings on the head were slightly different. Digging a little further, I found out that central and western Thailand has a sub-species, Malayemys macrocephala (differentiated by the number of stripes on the head)*. I think that is the correct ID, though I am certainly no terrapin/turtle expert!
The central/western sub-species seems to have two stripes instead of three.
The species can be identified by three distinct ridges along the top of the shell.*
* Source: https://bangkokherps.wordpress.com
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