THE STEINHART AQUARIUM - Gulf of Guinea Science ...

in pools and ditches after heavy rainfall.
Lays eggs in water during the rainy season.
Fertilized eggs hatch into free-swimming
tadpoles.
Mortality/Longevity: Estimated to live ~10
years in the wild.
Conservation Status: CITES: Appendix I.
Endangered due to habitat destruction and
over-collecting for the pet trade. For the past
20 years, the tomato frog has been considered
a flagship species for the Madagascar Fauna
Group, a consortium of mostly U.S. zoos
dedicated to the preservation of threatened
animals and natural habitats of Madagascar.
Today, institutions in the U.S., Europe, and
beyond have determined exact lineages
of tomato frogs bred in captivity and are
exchanging animals appropriate for breeding
with maximum genetic diversity.
Remarks: Captive-bred individuals are rarely
as bright red as wild tomato frogs.
When alarmed, the frog secretes a very sticky
goo onto its skin, a defense against predators;
this substance may produce allergic reactions
in humans.
CLASS REPTILIA
ORDER TESTUDINES AKA CHELONIA
(TURTLES AND TORTOISES)
Pig-nosed Turtle aka Fly River Turtle
Carettochelys insculpta (Carettochelyidae)
Pignose Turtles
Distribution: Southern New Guinea and Kimberly
Plateau of Australia.
Habitat: Shallow, slow-moving rivers, lagoons,
lakes and swamps with sandy or silty bottoms.
Also in estuaries. Active nocturnally. Emerge
from water only in order to nest.
Appearance: Length to 75 cm. Pitted, leathery,
gray-green carapace and a white plastron.
Limbs are clawed and paddlelike. Short head
terminates in a broad, tubular, “piglike” snout.
Carapaces of juveniles have serrated perimeters
and a central keel.
Diet: Opportunistic omnivores. Principal food
is the fruits of shoreline trees. Eat other plant
material: leaves, flowers that fall into river
California Academy of Sciences
205
from banks, and aquatic algae. Also take insect
larvae, mollusks and crustaceans. Scavenge
fishes and mammals as carrion.
Reproduction and Development: Female
excavates nest with hind limbs, lays multiple
clutches of 7–9 eggs, number probably correlated
with the mother’s size. Sex of offspring is
determined by temperature during the middle
third of incubation (females produced at high
temperatures, males during low temperatures).
At 30° C embryos develop to full term
in 64–74 days. Embryos capable of estivating
in their egg until the rainy season’s flooding
stimulates hatching. Thus total incubation
period is to 102 days.
Mortality/Longevity: Eggs and adults taken
for food by Papua New Guineans. Australian
aborigines eat adults of this species.
Conservation Status: Listed as Vulnerable by
the IUCN. Trampling of nests by water buffalo,
fishing, logging, grazing, agriculture and hunting
are among negative effects.
Remarks: Australian populations were not
discovered by biologists until 1969.
Species first described from the Fly River of
New Guinea in the 1800s.
Secretive animals. Use forelimbs to burrow by
scooping sand substrate over their carapace.
Adults may thermoregulate underwater by
lying over small thermal springs.
Only extant species in its family.
Matamata
Chelus fimbriatus (Latin = “fringed turtle”)
(Chelidae)
Australo-American Snakenecked Turtles
Distribution: Amazon Basin, South America.
Habitat: Active nocturnally in lakes, ponds
and sluggish creeks. This sideneck lives near
the bottom of turbid waterways and rarely
leaves the water.
Appearance: Length to 40 cm. Broad, threekeeled
brown carapace. Long thick neck,
triangular head with tiny eyes. Large mouth,
weak jaws. Snout is “snorkel-like: proboscis
with nostrils at the top. Well camouflaged;
algae grows on its carapace.
Diet: A “lay-in-wait” predator. Fishes captured
with the “gape and suck” technique:
open mouth creates a vacuum to draw in prey,
mouth snaps shut, water expelled, and the fish