Large predatory turtle: the face of a grandmother and the habits of a monster (8 photos)

Mata-mata, she is a fringed turtle - a native river systems of northern South America. The average size of a tortilla is half a meter, but record holders grew up to 95 centimeters in length. And that's just shell!





What are you staring at? Have you ever seen how logs climb each other?

But, despite the impressive size, you hardly notice it. Reptile donated to the outside attraction to become a real ninja turtle.



Mata-mata belongs to the family of snake-necked turtles. They do not hide the head in the shell, but fold it to one of the legs.

She does not own nunchaku or katana, does not carry pretentious names of Renaissance artists and in general looks extremely unattractive, if not repulsive. flat wide head turned into a triangle, and the nose - into the trunk. This shape of the head allows the reptile to spend days in the water without getting out of it. Just stuck out his head swallowed life-giving oxygen and then pretend to be a snag in muddy water.



Do you see any turtle here? Here I am no!

But the most remarkable feature is the scalloped "fringe" covering her head and neck. For her matu-matu and called fringed. Turtle skin outgrowths not from old age and not even from the fact that she I've been in the water for too long. It's multifunctional tool. Outgrowths perfectly mask the neck and head of the mat-mat under another element of the underwater landscape. In particular, under the leaves moco moco plants. They also became a second sight for the turtle - the processes on the neck are very sensitive to vibrations. This is especially true in murky water.



In addition to the fringe, mata-mata focuses on vision. Even at night in troubled waters, she is able to detect prey.

All these devices are necessary for a mate-mate to find prey. Do not look that the muzzle of a turtle is similar to the face of a kind smiling grandmother. A trip to such a pensioner will end as in the story of Little Red Riding Hood!



A picture that smells like fresh hot pies.

The turtle's diet consists entirely of fish. and meat. To dine, mata mata dig in in silt and waiting. Streams of water are slowly swaying its fringed outgrowths, beckoning small fish, crustaceans and other not-so-intelligent creatures for lunch. But as soon as the victim is close to a hidden predator, like a turtle immediately opens his mouth to the full width and sucks!



If animals, getting into the mouth of a mat-mat, could speak, they would express themselves exclusively with mats ...

The jaws of the mat-mat are weak. And that's putting it mildly. She can't chew or bite. All responsibility for his satiety, the turtle laid on physics - and didn't guess. Sharply opening a huge mouth, the reptile creates a funnel that instantly sucks prey straight down the throat turtles. Everything about everything takes one fiftieth of a second! Get in even chicks and small terrestrial mammals.



“Grandma, why do you have such a big mouth?” "So that I can eat you!"

Feeling the prey in the mouth, mata-mata gradually releases the water she has swallowed. The victim dies of suffocation. All stages of food processing, including the determination of taste, occur in the reptile right in the stomach.



I feel in my stomach that someone very sweet is sitting behind the screen!

The non-standard appearance of the mat-mat turned out to be quite attractive to terrariumists and zoos. turtle good endures captivity - it is nowhere special in nature does not move. But here are the conditions in which reptiles will be good - extremely difficult. Mate-mate is vital high temperatures of both water and air. If scores drop below +24 degrees, the reptile stops eating and may die from hunger. Another hitch is food. homemade diet turtles must consist exclusively of live fish. If try to feed the turtle carrion, it will just burp her back.