Rafetus

Home of the largest freshwater turtle in the world

Members of this genus can only be found in eastern and southern China and northern Vietnam. Of the Critically-endangered Yangtze giant softshell turtle, there are just five or six known individuals worldwide, including one in China and three or four in Vietnam.

IUCN has designated the world’s biggest freshwater turtle species as severely endangered after the loss of a wild individual in Vietnam in January 2016 and a captive one in China in 2019. The final breeding female passed away in April 2019 at China’s Suzhou Zoo. A female wildcat was seen in Vietnam on October 22, 2020.

The second species, Euphrates softshell turtle, is endangered primarily by habitat loss and alteration but also pollution and by-catch.