New Guinea snake-necked turtle

New Guinea snake-necked turtle
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Suborder: Pleurodira
Family: Chelidae
Subfamily: Chelodininae
Genus: Chelodina
Subgenus: Chelodina
Species: C. novaeguineae
Binomial name
Chelodina novaeguineae
Boulenger , 1888[1]
Synonyms[2][3]
  • Chelodina novaeguineae Boulenger, 1888
  • Chelodina novawquineae Nutaphand, 1979 (ex errore)
  • Chelodina novaeguinea Wells & Wellington, 1984 (ex errore)
  • Chelodina novaeguinae Orenstein, 2001 (ex errore)
  • Chelodina novaeguineae novaeguineae Artner, 2003
  • Chelodina novaguineae Georges & Thomson, 2006 (ex errore)
  • Chelodina gunaleni McCord & Ouni, 2007

The New Guinea snake-necked turtle (Chelodina novaeguineae) is a species of turtle in the Chelidae family. It is found in northeastern Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.

Habitat

Small and large freshwater bodies of water, jungle rivers with ample vegetation.

Characteristics

Carapace dark brown, almost black, but shows some variation from "normal" turtle patterns. The plastron is a light brown, tan color. Long neck and (including head) can sometimes exceed the length of the carapace. Skin mostly gray, has a black head and white on under parts of the skin.

Behavior

When resting, this turtle twists its long neck off to the side for protection. The highly flexible neck permits foraging in mud as well as snorkeling. It also allows the turtle to strike quickly to capture prey.

Reproduction

The snake-neck turtle is oviparous. 17-21 eggs are laid and incubation lasts 75–110 days depending on temperature.

References

  1. Boulenger, G.A. 1888. On the chelydoid chelonians of New Guinea. Annals Museo Civico di Storia Naturale de Genova. (2)6:449-452
  2. Peter Paul van Dijk, John B. Iverson, H. Bradley Shaffer, Roger Bour, and Anders G.J. Rhodin. 2012. Turtles of the World, 2012 Update: Annotated Checklist of Taxonomy, Synonymy, Distribution, and Conservation Status. Chelonian Research Monographs No. 5, pp. 000.243–000.328.
  3. Georges, A. & Thomson, S. 2010. Diversity of Australasian freshwater turtles, with an annotated synonymy and keys to species. Zootaxa 2496: 1–37.

External links

Wikispecies has information related to: Chelodina novaeguineae
Portal iconTurtles portal
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, December 23, 2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.