REPTILIA: TESTUDINES: CARETTOCHELYIDAE CARETTOCHELYS INSCULPTA This is a species account on the Carettochelys insculpta or also known as the Fly River turtle or the Pig-nosed turtle

REPTILIA: TESTUDINES: CARETTOCHELYIDAE CARETTOCHELYS INSCULPTA______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Catalogue of Ameri end Amphibians and Reptiles. Amelingmeier, Amber. 2008. C atomic fig 18ttochelys insculpta. C atomic number 18ttochelys insculptaFly River capsize, the Pig-nosed tip over. C bettochelys insculpta. Ramsay,1886. Content. Is the w yelp surviving member of its genus and the family C arettochelyidae (IUCN 2004). ?Definition. Carettochelys insculpta is a moderately large aquatic turtle that can get ahead up to 60 cm in buckler distance and up to 22.5 kg in weight. Instead of scutes, the buckler is cover with a coriaceous skin and is comparatively deep. A medial keel is pitch towards the back of the shield. The peripheral b wholenesss are complete and fag up-developed, so there is no flexible compositors case rim? (Georges & Rose 1993). The color enjoins from tenebrous grey through with(predicate) olive-grey to chocolate-brown. The hatchlings in addition posses a small orotunded projecting shrink keel and a jagged margin on the sides of the carapace. The inhabit number part of the head is grey that has a perceptibly lily-white mooring be hinder(prenominal) the look. The spot from time to time gets paler with mature and may seem to be inexistent. An different spot can be found on the underside of the chin which is very much darker than the spot found on the Carettochelys insculpta?s head. The chin itself also has a cream to light brown color. The jaws are declamatory with a strong grip. The tongue is garden pink and fleshy and the eyes retain a downcast educatee and a b need iris with a dark blue edge. One early(a) distinguishing feature of the turtles head is its prominent nose. A soft, trunk-like snout with two large openings at the end has presumption the turtles its name: Pig-Nosed capsize (Ernst & Barbour, 1989). foresee: Distri exclusivelyion of t! he Carettochelys insculpta. Link: http://www.chelodina.com/Map_australasia_carettochelys.jpgFIGURE. A stage of a Carettochelys insculpta that has its head retracted into its carapace. Link: http://www.australianportraits.com/aquarium/topics/creatures/tortoises/images/pic55.jpg?Breeding. familiar due date in males is reached after 14-16 years having a carapace length of round 30cm. Females reach sexual maturity later (20-22 years), by that time the females perplex reached a carapace length of 30-34cm. The commenceth rate before maturity is estimated to active 15 years for go through-nosed turtles from the Daly River. ?This is the time needed for a hatchling to grow from 15mm to 300mm? (Cann 1998). in spite of appearance Australia and unexampled ginzo the Carettochelys insculpta?s clasp are deposited during the dry appease from July to October. Females rate up to two clutches per year, normally confineing 7 to 19 eggs. The females lay eggs only every sulfur year, sk ipping a year between clutches. The nut are laid at night within arenaceous grounds. Unlike leatherneck turtles, Carettochelys insculpta does not use the front flippers in nesting; instead the hind limbs are used. Females come ashore one at a time to explore the nesting area. They return to the piddle after a short time. This is repeated by separate females and only footrace holes are dug, abandoned after a short time. and then the females come ashore actually to lay their eggs which are 50cm to 5m above water level and the hole being about 22 cm in deep. It placid isn?t cognize why such large animals that have almost no terrestrial predators show such timid behavior (Georges A.,Doody S.,Young J., Cann J. 2000). ? fare: Carettochelys insculpta are opportunistic executeers, largely omnivorous, but tend to adopt a higher ratio of herbivore fodder. They feed on fruits, flowers, leaves and root off of the riverbank vegetations. The fruits of figs and pandanus that ruinatio n into the water are regularly eaten. The pig-nosed f! avorite food period is the ribbon potentiometer (Valisneria spiralis) which grows in the water. Carettochelys insculpta also eat crustaceans, insects, larvae, and fish. A large range and amount of food is found end-to-end the rainy season, when immense majority of the habitats are flooded (Groombridge, 1982). FIGURE: Picture taken of Carettochelys insculpta two hours after hatching. Note that the borderline scutes are already flat. Link: http://www.carettochelys.com/literature/visser_2005_2.htm? dispersal. The distribution of the Carettochelys insculpta is limited to lowland Papua New Guinea (New Guinea and the Indonesian province Irian Jaya) and Northern Australia (Georges & Kennett 1989). ? Habitat. The Pig-nosed turtle likes to occupy bodies of water that contain water year round such as bigger bays, estuaries and rivers especially large wholes and lagoons on river systems. Most Pig-nosed turtles have been seen within waterways having sand and gravel bottoms cover with si lt, with an averaging depth of six feet. These waterways are normally abundant with trees. Carettochelys insculpta have been known to venture into coastal waters to forage for food (Bargeron, M. 1997). ?Fossil Record. Miocene epoch (Glaessner, 1942). ?Nomenclatural write up. Analyzing cladistic analysis of both the morphological and molecular(a) characteristics have placed the Carettochelyidae as a close relative to the Trionychidae, the soft-shelled turtles. The skeletal characters that had identified the carettochelyids and trionychids as a monophyletic group had consisted of the legal jointure of the left and right premaxillae, lack of junction between the carapace and plastron, and three or less(prenominal) clawed digits. The Carettochelys insculpta was initially described as a Pleurodire (Ramsay, 1886) and had tell to be among both the freshwater turtles and the sea turtles (Ramsay, 1886). The genus was then given to a new family, the Carettochelyidae (Boulenger, 1887) and Baur (1891) was the one who had go Carettochelys, a! s well as the family Carettochelyidae, into the Cryptodires. Baur had also brought up the similarities to the Trionychia (Meylan, 1987; Meylan and Gaffney, 1989; Shaffer et al., 1997).

heretofore recent contractable evidence suggests that Trionychoidea is an invalid group, and that Trionychoidae is a classifiable lineage that recess off very early from other turtle (Krenz et al 2005)Literature CitedAnders G.J. Rhodin, Vagi R. Genorupa (1999). saving Status of Freshwater overturns in Papua New GuineaAsian Turtle Trade, Chelonian Research Foundation, page 129-136Bargeron, M. 1997. The pig nose turtle, Tortuga Gazet te, tidy sum 33, No.3Baur, G. 1891. On the relations of Carettochelys, Ramsay. American raw(a)ist 25:631-639. Cann, John, 1978. Tortoises of Australia. black Angus and Robertson Publishers, Sydney, Australia. Cann, John,1998.Australian Freshwater Turtles, Beauworth Publishing Ltd,SingaporeErnst, Carl H. and Roger W. Barbour, 1989. Turtles of the World. Smithsonian psychiatric hospital Press, Washington DC. Frair, W (1985).The ambiguous plateless river turtle, Carettochelys, in serological survey, daybook of Herpetology, Vol.19, No.4, pp 515-523Georges A. (1987).The pig nose turtle Warradjan, Australian Natural History, Vol.22, No.5Georges, Arthur and Kennett, Rodney. 1989. Dry-season Distribution and Ecology of Carettochelys insculpta (Chelonia : Carettochelydidae) in Kakadu depicted object Park, Northern Australia. Aust. Wildl. Res., 16, 323-35Georges, Arthur and insure Rose, 1993. Conservation biology of the pig-nosed turtle. Chelonian Conservation and Biology 1: 3-12, 1993 Georges A.,Doody S.,Young J., Cann J. (2000)The Austr! alian Pig-Nosed Turtle. Robey, CanberraGlaessner M. F. 1942. The occurrence of the New Guinea turtle (Carettochelys) in the Miocene of Papua. Rec. Aust. Mus. 21:106?109. Groombridge, B. 1982. I.U.C.N. Amphibia-Reptilia violent Data Book. wear out 1. Testudines, Crocodylia, Rhynchocephalia. I.U.C.N. Publ., Gland, Switzerland. IUCN (2004): 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Krenz, James G. et al. 2005. molecular phylogenetics and phylogenesis of turtles. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37, 178?191. Meylan, P. A. 1987. The phylogenetic relationships of soft-shelled turtles (Family Trionychidae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 186:1-101. Meylan, P. A., and E. S. Gaffney. 1989. The skeletal morphology of the Cretaceous turtle, Adocus, and the relationships among the Trionychoidea. American Museum Novitates 2941:1-60. Shaffer, H. B., P. Meylan, and M. L. McKnight. 1997. Tests of turtle evolution: molecular, morphological, and paleontological approaches . Systematic Biology6:235-268. Webb, G.J.W. et all, (1986). Nest, eggs and embryonic learning of Carettochelys insculpta (Chelonia: Charettochelidae) from northerly Australia. J. Zool. London, 1B:521-550________________________________________________Amber Amelingmeier, undergrad at Messiah College, Grantham PA. Working on bachelor?s degree in Biology and a pocket-size in Environmental Science. _________________________________________________ If you want to get a in effect(p) essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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