Archives of The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 33, Number 4;   April, 2006

"Extinct" Turtle Back

by Duncan Macfarlane

Scientists were beating a path to a plastic tank in Brisbane yesterday to examine a shell-backed beast they had presumed to be extinct. The young male Lavarack's turtle was captured in a creek at the Lawn Hill National Park in north Queensland a week ago and flown to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service in Brisbane.

As well as its journey back from the dead, the shelled beast has another unusual characteristic scientists are keen to investigate: it breathes through its bum. Its rear orifice, called a cloaca, serves as an anus and also conceals its reproductive organs and a pair of gill-like sacs.

"It is the first of our turtles to be found as a fossil, then as a living creature," QPWS conservation officer Col. Limpus said. "It has survived relatively unchanged for thousands of years." The turtle was identified and named in 1994 after scientists found a fossil remain, which they displayed at the Queensland Museum. They assumed the species had become extinct at the start of the most recent ice age, 15,000 years ago, until a live version was stumbled on in the late 1990s. Dr. Limpus said a steady stream of scientists had come to gawk at the turtle in his new home, a plastic tank, to satisfy their curiosity. "Whenever there is a new specimen that people have read about but never seen, everyone comes down for a look," he said. "That's especially true with a handsome turtle like this. Most turtles have a plain cream colour underneath but this one is pleasantly mottled."

Over the next few days the 1 kg (approximately 2.2 lbs.) turtle will be measured from top to toe and then suffer a more intrusive inspection. Scientists will stick a camera-headed fibreoptic cable into his cloaca to see how his breathing apparatus works.

Lavarack's turtles are among the biggest turtles in Australia, and females can grow to 5 kg (approximately 11 lbs.). They are classified as "endangered" by the federal government.