Females can grow to a shell length of 56 cm (22 in) and weigh 25 kilograms (55 lb), but males are considerably smaller.

In the breeding season, the heads and necks of male turtles exhibit bright red, yellow and blue coloration.

Historically, this turtle was found in central Nepal, northeastern India, Bangladesh and probably Burma (Myanmar), but it has suffered declines in population due to being harvested for meat and shells, drowned in fishing nets, water pollution, hydro-electric schemes and habitat loss.

Fewer than four hundred adult females are thought to remain in the wild, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature rating this turtle as being "critically endangered".

India has put conservation measures in place, and a captive breeding programme has been initiated.

The marginal serrature disappears in adolescent specimens and the vertebral keel, after being reduced to a series of low knobs, vanishes entirely in the full-grown, the carapace of which is very convex.

The longest median suture is between the abdominals and the shortest is between the gulars, which equals about one half that between the humerals.

Alveolar surfaces are very broad, the median ridge of the upper jaw being somewhat nearer the outer than the inner margin.

[8] Recent annual nesting surveys indicate fewer than 400 adult females remaining in the wild.

Their populations have now been drastically reduced due to poaching for their meat and shells, accidental drowning in fishing gear, water pollution, hydroelectric infrastructure projects, habitat destruction by sand mining, and egg predation by jackals.