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Macrochelodina parkeri
Parker's Snake-necked Turtle DISTRIBUTION: Around the southern center part of the island that makes up Papua New Guinea and West Papua New Guinea. EMPIRE STOCK: WC exported from Indonesia, most likely from West Papua New Guinea. SIZE: Up to 27cm. HABITAT: Grass swamps. Its habitat undergoes cycles of heavy rainfall and drying out. DIET: Fish, shrimp, Mazuri Turtle and Aquamax 500 & 600, and pinkie rats. I start hatchlings on bloodworms before moving onto chopped shrimp, smaller fish and pellets. SEXING: Males have longer thicker tails. BREEDING: Nesting in my collection occurs at the edge of the ponds, underwater. Clutches and eggs are smaller in size than in Macrochelodina rugosa siebenrocki, but M. parkeri may lay more than one clutch per season. NOTES: This is probably the most "colorful" of the Chelodina with its vermiculated pattern on the head and shell. The coloration of the young is more pronounced. |
The last sight many a fish has seen.
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Suggested Reading Booth, D. T. 2002. The Breaking of Diapause in Embryonic Broad-shell River Turtles (Chelodina expansa). Journal of Herpetology. Vol 36(2): 304-307. Fordham, D., A. Georges, and B. Corey. 2006. Compensation for inundation induced embryonic diapause in a freshwater turtle: achieving predictability in the face of environmental stochasticity. Functional Ecology 20: 670-677. Georges, A., Mark Adams, and William McCord. 2002. Electrophoretic delineation of species boundaries within the genus Chelodina (Testudines: Chelidae) of Australia, New Guinea, and Indonesia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 134: 401-421. Kennett, R. 1999. Reproduction of two species of freshwater turtle, Chelodina rugosa and Elseya dentata. from the wet-dry tropics of Australia. J. Zool. Lond. 247: 457-473. Thomson, Scott. Long Necks, Flat Heads and the Evolution of Piscivory. |
