Samenvatting

Nowadays almost half of the world’s population of freshwater turtles and tortoises are threatened with extinction in the wild. Particularly in Asia the population decline is severe and referred to as the “Asian Turtle Crisis”. Turtles are thought to be keystone species and therefore their disappearance could have catastrophic effects on their ecosystems. The study species Keeled Box Turtle (Cuora mouhotii) is one of the endangered species of Vietnam and nearly nothing is known about its ecology. The aim of this research was to provide information on the ecology of the species to enhance the current knowledge for future conservation purposes. The study was divided into three parts: a survey on the daily activity patterns and time budget, an experiment on the influence of rainfall on the behaviour, and a survey on the daily movement patterns. All data were collected from July to September 2010 in the Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam.