The Mary River Turtle is a unique turtle only found (guess where) in the Mary River in South East Queensland. They are sometimes called the Punk Turtle due to the algae that can grow on their shell or head (see video). They can stay underwater for three days through their ability to extract oxygen from the water through a gill-like structure in its cloaca (see video), giving rise to one of their other names, the bum-breathing turtle.
Threats to this turtle include predation of eggs and hatchlings by red foxes, wild dogs, goannas and fish and floods washing away eggs. They are a monotypic genus (a genus to which only one species belongs) representing a very old lineage of turtles that has all but disappeared from the evolutionary history of Australia. Mary River Turtles take an unusually long time to mature; females take 25 years and males 30 years.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Mary River turtle was popular as a pet in Australia, with about 10,000 sent to shops every year during a 10-year period. They were originally known as the “penny turtle” or “pet shop turtle”. This is thought to have contributed to a decline in the species by taking out generations.