NEWS107
42
ChineseSoftshellTurtlesarealwayson thealert.
kept with
Pelodiscus sinensis
, as sooner or
later they will invariably fall prey to the
turtles.
Feeding
The feeding of Chinese Softshell Turtles
can be accomplished without problem.
Pelleted food such as is sold for aquatic
turtles in thepet tradewillprovideagood,
healthy,basicdiet for juveniles. Inaddition
they canbe given frozen foods designed
for ornamental fishes, above all blood-
worms, freshwater shrimps (
Gammarus
),
rinse itundercold flowingwater immedia-
telyprior to feeding.Itdoesn'tmatteratall
if individual foodparticlesareeatenbefore
they are completely thawed. Earthworms
areaparticular delicacy forChineseSofts-
hellTurtles,andsmall freshwater snailsare
alsoenjoyed.Butas regards the latter,only
aquarium-bredspecimensshouldbeused,
aswildaquatic snailscan transmit amulti-
tudeof parasites.There are repeated refe-
rences in the literature toChineseSoftshell
Turtlesalsoconsumingvegetablematerial,
but theydosoonlyextremely rarely in the
that breed the species for foodor religious
purposes.TheHindu faithful regard the re-
lease of a juvenile softshell turtle, like the
feedingof thehuge temple turtles,asame-
ritorious religiousact.
It is also known frombreeding farms that
ChineseSoftshell Turtles are very fast-gro-
wingundertropicalconditionsandproduce
large clutches of 9-28eggs several times a
year and year-round. The eggs are round
andweigh5gramsonaverage.Theyare laid
in sandbanks, often in several layers, one
abovetheother,withthesurfaceoftheeggs
lying furthest from the surfaceof the sand
beingat least6cmdeep in thesand.The in-
cubationperiod lasts for40-80days,depen-
dingon temperature. It hasbeen recorded
thatembryonicChineseSoftshellTurtlescan
evenmove inside theegg inorder to reach
somewhatwarmer areas, thus speedingup
theirdevelopment (Duaetal,2011).
Thesexesareeasytodetermine inadultChi-
nese Softshell Turtles on the basis of tail
length,but juvenilesareunsexable.
If youarenow filledwith thedesire tokeep
andbreedChineseSoftshellTurtles,yourpet
dealercanundoubtedlyorder them foryou
froma trustworthywholesaler, for example
Tropenparadies in Oberhausen, Fax +49
0208-665997
Literatur:
Klingelhöffer,W. (1959):Terrarienkunde,4.Teil.
Stuttgart
Wei-GuoDua,BoZhaob,YeChenb,andRi-
chardShine (2011):Behavioral thermoregula-
tionby turtleembryos.PNASEarlyEdition
Somma,LouisA. (2013):Pelodiscus sinensis.
USGSNonindigenousAquaticSpeciesData-
base,Gainesville,FL.
?speciesID=1278RevisionDate:10/26/2011
RafflesMuseumof BiodiversityResearch
(2013):Pelodiscus sinensis.
-
tails/816
JayadityaPurkayastha,AhmedMahmadul
Hassan,Hasanul Islam,JessicaDas,Manoj
Sarma,MituseelaBasumatary,Nilakshi Sarma,
NishantChatterjee,SachinSingha,Vishnu-
priyaNair,Arundhati Purkayastha,Jayashree
Dutta,andMadhurimaDas (2013):Turtlesof
theTemplePondof Kamakhya,Assam, India.
REPTILERAP#15:11-15
Artemia,
andMysis;when the turtlesareso-
mewhat larger they can be given whole
frozenStint as their basicdiet.Contrary to
the repeatedly printed nonsense about
"stomachchills",there isnoneed todefrost
frozen food toavoid the turtles catchinga
chill internally (that is physiologically im-
possible), but frozen food shouldbe tha-
wed inorder to avoidpolluting the aqua-
riumwater unnecessarily with the water
that always results from thawing and
which has a heavy organic content. The
bestmethodof thawing is toput the fro-
zen food inasuitably fine-meshednetand
aquarium
Breeding
Pelodiscussinensis
ishardlyeverbred incen-
tralEurope,largelybecauseof itsunsociabi-
lity. Although these turtles canbe kept in
outdoorunits -dependingon theirproven-
ance,evenyear round -where there isusu-
ally significantlymore spaceavailable than
in indoor quarters, the majority of turtle
breeders prefer to use this space for the
breeding of rarer species. All the juvenile
ChineseSoftshellTurtles inthepettradeare,
however,captive-bred,but frombusinesses
