This Endangered Tortoise Only Found in Sulawesi Island

When listed on the top rank usually we should be happy. But what happen when our Sulawesi tortoise forest is listed on the top 25 endangered tortoise in the world? If that thing that happen off course we are not happy, it's terrible.

Forest tortoise of Sulawesi scientific name is Leucocephalon yuwonoi. In the 2011 this betet peaked animal got an "award" because listed on The World’s 25 Most Endangered Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles.

Beside of L. yuwonoi, there are two of Indonesian tortoise species that included in the list Chelodina mccordi and Chitra chitra. But among those three tortoises the betet peaked is the most vulnerable one becuse it's endemic in Sulawesi.

Endemic animal is special one because we can not found them in another place. Forest tortoise of Sulawesi only find in Sulawesi, not in other island moreover in the other states. That mean if Indonesia let L. yuwonoi extinct, so it's in the other places.

L. yuwonoi body size is middle-shape with the carapace 28-31 cm (male) and 20-25 cm (female). The carapace is flat light brown - black color, in the male the head have pale color and easily distinct with the female.

The existence of L. yuwonoi in their nature decreasing by habitat loss, but trading is also a serious problem in losing them rapidly. There are two mainly reason why people hunt them, first some people liked to add them as ingredients in Chinese food and second there is always some people attracted to keep unique-rare animal as a pet.

We need big effort to save them from extinction. The minimum of research data in this tortoise make them hardly known. Public awareness to preserve biodiversity also low. But there is always little step that we can do to save biodiversity, such as sharing informations and stop buying or keeping the endangered animal as a pet.

Literatures:
http://www.iucn-tftsg.org/wp-content/uploads/file/Top%2025/Top_25+_Turtles_in_Trouble_2011.pdf
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/40761/0
https://alamendah.org/2011/09/17/kura-kura-hutan-sulawesi-leucocephalon-yuwonoi-nan-langka/