Spiny Softshell Turtle

Here's a Spiny Softshell Turtle I met back in May. When I saw the spots, I suspected this was a Spotted Turtle, but when I got home I realized that Spotted Turtles have yellow spots, not black. Eventually I read that the Spiny Softshell is sometimes spotted like in the picture below.

At first I thought I had missed a photograph opportunity with this turtle. Initially it saw me first and dived into the canal, but then for some reason it turned around and came back to the bank of the canal. (I guess I wasn't as scary as the turtle initially thought.)

These are interesting turtles in many ways:
  1. Their carapace is softer than all our native turtles, being more leathery than hard/rigid.
  2. They (least their females) can get pretty big, almost as big as our Common Snapping Turtles. (Large males are only about half the size of large females.)
  3. Their noses are narrow snouts that are a little like tiny pig snouts.
  4. They perform bimodal respiration; they can breathe air or underwater. Many species can do this during brumation (reptile hibernation) when oxygen needs are quite low, but it sounds like Spiny Softshells can do it if they just want to stay underwater. (A few other turtles can also do this.)
  5. They're native to North America, but not to New Jersey. Someone brought them from Indiana to intentionally create a population here. (This sort of thing is almost never a good idea.)
May 13, 2021 at the Raritan River Greenway
Photo 132037143, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)




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