Turtles bottom out
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| Time for a breather ... Ms Mathie |
The endangered Mary River Turtle has learned the perfect way to avoid being eaten – stay underwater.
UQ PhD student, Natalie Mathie, who has been studying Mary River hatchlings for the past two years, has shown that the turtle can stay submerged for at least three days, possibly up to a week in the right conditions. She said unlike most freshwater turtles, the Mary River Turtle could extract about half of its oxygen requirements from river water using special sacs in its bottom. The endangered Mary River Turtle is unique to the Mary River and it’s believed only hundreds of eggs are laid each breeding season.
Ms Mathie, with UQ’s School of Integrative Biology, has been studying how changes in water temperature, oxygen levels and also the presence of predators affect the turtles’ respiration and diving behaviour. She believes their diving is a survival strategy to lessen their chance of being eaten by birds on the surface or by fish and eels. She said the turtle was under threat because its eggs were being eaten by cats, dogs and foxes or their nests were being trampled by cattle.
Ms Mathie, who has been supported by the local Tiaro Landcare group, plans to fix depth recorders and transmitters to the shells of adult turtles as part of further research.
