The Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is an extremely rare species of softshell turtle found in Vietnam and China. It is also known as the Red River giant softshell turtle, Shanghai softshell turtle, or Swinhoe's softshell turtle. In Chinese, it is known as the speckled softshell turtle (Chinese: 斑鱉; Pinyin: bān bīe). Only four living individuals are known and it is listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List. It is hoped that a pair at Suzhou Zoo in China will breed.
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Famous quotes containing the words yangtze, giant and/or turtle:
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Lenin in a sealed train through Germany
Hsuan Tsang, crossing the Pamirs
Joseph, Crazy Horse, living the last free
starving high-country winter of their tribes.
Surrender into freedom revolt into slavery—”
—Gary Snyder (b. 1930)
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Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
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“I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
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All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)