Order: Testudines

Family: Trionychidae

 

Size:  up to 94 cm in length

Weight: hatchling weight 9-12 g

 

Key Features: prominent, tube-like snout and has a round to oval, smooth upper shell (carapace), which is olive or green in colour with a yellow border. The limbs are also green, while the shell on the underside of the turtle’s body is grey to cream. It has a broad head, with several black stripes running from the centre towards the sides. Juvenile Ganges soft-shelled turtles can be identified by the dark eye-shaped markings and rows of round bumps that adorn the shell.

 

Voice: - during courtship male produces low, hoarse, cackling sounds to attract the female.

 

Breeding: Mating activity occurs in shallow waters during the monsoon season (September to February). Nesting occurs any time between May and January, although there is a peak in activity between December and January. The female burrows into sandy banks, digging a flask-shaped nest cavity into which is laid a clutch of between 8 and 47 eggs. Incubation lasts for between 251 and 310 days and the hatchlings emerge around July.

 

Diet:  feeds mostly on fish, amphibians, carrion and other animal matter, but also takes aquatic plants.

 

Habitat: inhabits deep rivers, streams, large canals, lakes and ponds, with a bed of mud or sand. It tends to prefer areas where the water is turbid.

 

Habits: Despite its relatively small size, reported observations of the Ganges soft-shelled turtle paint a picture of a voracious and skilled predator. This turtle sometimes feeds in large groups, one of which has even been seen attacking, killing and feasting on a Nilgai antelope (Boselaphus tragocamelus) in a canal in India. Animal carcasses, which are frequently dumped in the rivers it inhabits, are also fed upon, resulting in this turtle being called a ‘waterlogged vulture’.

 

Conservation Status: Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Ernst, C.H., Altenburg, R.G.M. and Barbour, R.W. (1997) Turtles of the World. ETI Information Systems Ltd, Netherlands.

 

Vitt, L.J. and Caldwell, J.P. (2009) Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles. Third Edition. Academic Press, Burlington, Massachusetts.

 

Moll, D. and Moll, E. (2004) The Ecology, Exploitation and Conservation of River Turtles. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

IUCN Red List (2014). http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/39618/0

 

Photo Courtesy

Cuvier -  Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Indian Soft-shell Turtle (Nilssonia gangetica)