Mexican Musk Turtle Facts

Video Transcript

"Here we have a Mexican Musk Turtle. It's scientific name is staurotypus triporcatus. This particular species is found in slow moving bodies of fresh water in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. This species has a very large, oval carapace, with lengths up to twelve inches. They have three, strongly developed longitudinal keels that unlike most turtles, they can't retract back into their shell. They have very strong jaws, and you can tell that this is a male of the species, due to the thickness of its tail, the spine at the time of the tail, and these rough patches on the inside of their legs. They use both the spine and the tail to grip on to the female during mating. You may have noticed the algae that is covering my hand and his shell, and this is due to him being a very aquatic turtle, and he's pretty vicious. During the mating season the female can produce more than one clutch of eggs, and they can have about nine eggs per clutch. A very interesting fact about this turtle is that it gets its name from its ability to produce a very foul smell from the gland at the back of the shell. They're also veracious carnivores, eating almost anything they can fit in their mouths, including tadpoles, reptiles, other turtles, and sometimes small mammals. As you can tell already, that this is a very vicious turtle, it's from the family of turtles called kinosternidae, which are generally mild mannered turtles. However this one ruins the reputation as it is widely known in captivity, in the wild for being pretty vicious."