Well, this is certainly interesting news. It appears that a two-headed turtle (Picture gallery) has gripped the attention of Phuket, and may turn into a full blow two-headed turtle mania if the media coverage is any indication.

The Royal Thai Navy has created a contest to help come up with a suitable name for the 18-day old turtle, which really created a stir when it was put on display in the turtle sanctuary at the Navy base in Tablamu, just to the north of Phuket.

Chatjen Choipean, a warrant officer who is in charge of many functions at the Navy hatchery beach at Hu Young Island in the Similans has commented that the two-headed turtle was the last in a batch of 26 turtles to hatch from the laying of 96 eggs. Turtles often lay there eggs on the beach between November and February.

This Olive Ridley turtle, officials are keeping their fingers crossed, may just do the same thing for Phuket and other turtles that a young panda has done for the Chinang Mai Zoo.

Last year, Warrant officer Chatjen explained, there were 80 separate nests made and eggs laid on the island. However, so far this year, there have only been 30.

”The young two-headed turtle is very strong and doing well,” he commented. This is the first time that a two-headed turtle has made an appearance in the Navy region, and many hope that it is a sign of good luck for the breeding attempts in the future, especially on the mainland and Phuket.

Visitors are encouraged to view the turtle at Tablamu, where they can also take advantage of one of the best golf courses in the area, and engage in one of many of the activities available in the surrounding Phang Nga countryside.

It is not known whether the two-headed turtle is male or female, and it could take up to 5 years to discover which it is, however, this will have no bearing on the decision of a name.

Hawksbill turtle

Two years after their detainment, 13 poachers, from Vietnam, who were caught with the dead bodies of 101 endangered Hawksbill turtles (known in scientific circles as Eretmochelys imbricata) near El Nido, northern Palawan, in the Philippines, have finally been convicted and sentenced to hefty fines along with some jail time.

On the 22nd of June, The Regional Trial Court of Puerto Princesa, Branch 50, after much deliberation, decided that the Vietnamese poachers should face jail time for their heinous acts, and will receive anywhere from 6 to 18 months, plus have some hefty fines to pay.

Since the poachers have been sitting in jail since the 2nd of September 2008, the court also decided that they will only have to cough up the money for the fines.

Two Filipino gunboats apprehended the Vietnamese boat transporting the poachers five miles east of Cabaluan Island near El Nido on August the 29th 2008. In a sheer act of desperation, the 13 crew members aboard the boat tried to sink her by flooding the holds, however were preented from doing so by law enforcement officers.

When the cargo holds were explored, they discovered the corpses of 101 Hawksbill Turtles, classified as being critically endangered, which is the highest risk rating for any living animal. This rating was handed down by the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, some time ago.

So, they did the crime, they served the time, now all that remains is for them to pay the fine… Although, is it really enough? Did the poachers learn their lesson? Or were they simply sorry they were caught?

Alligator Snapping Turtle

A fisherman, Steve Bellion aged 23, was out at Earlswood Resevoir angling for carp when he caught a little more than he bargained for. He managed to reel in a 57 lb (27 kg) reptile!

He dragged it to shore where it was easily identified as an 80 year old alligator snapping turtle. This is a rare catch indeed, as these turtles are generally only found in the eastern corners of the United States.

This has solved a rather puzzling mystery for the local fishermen. There has been many a tale told for a decade, of a giant creature biting through lines and roughing up ducks.

Alligator snapping turtle

The ancient Alligator Snapping Turtle, identified as being female, was transferred to the West Midland Safari Park, where it is going to be held in quarantine for the customary 30 days and checked over by the veterinary team there.

Alligator Snapping Turtles can live to be 160 years old, making it one of the longest living creatures to be hauled to shore in the area.

Once it has finished being checked over, it will be transferred to a vivarium with a male of the species.

“They have been known to attack small domestic pets or children, but I don’t think this one would have drifted to far from the water.” stated the director of wildlife at the safari park, Bob Lawrence. At first glance it seems that the turtle is in perfect health, as it should be after gorging itself on the local wildlife.

He went on to add that this really brings to light the danger of introducing foreign species into Britain’s waterways, much the same way that American signal crayfish have created quite a dip in the UK’s national crayfish population.

Last month, 82 Green sea turtles hatched at SeaWorld in San Diego, California.

The eggs hatched on Shipwreck Beach and the youngsters didn’t need any human aid to get out of their shells and into the water. The park had decided to let nature take its course by refraining from incubating the eggs or help the hatchlings emerge. SeaWorld are now planning to dig up the beach to check if any buried eggs failed to hatch.

At the moment, the baby sea turtles are roughly one month old and only weigh a few grams. They happily feed on squid, shrimp, krill and special pellets. Assistant curator of fishes Tim Downing says they are all in excellent health and that they will go on display before the end of the year.

“There is so much that is not known about sea turtles,” said Downing. “We are getting real good information on the growth rate of juveniles. They are all gaining weight and doing well. We have done some X-rays, and they are progressing just like we would expect them to.”

SeaWorld is home to 30 adult sea turtles, including four Green sea turtles – three females and one male. They have been living at SeaWorld since the 1960s and are sexually mature, so all three females may have buried eggs in the sand. Only genetic testing will be able to reveal the maternity of each baby turtle.

All seven species of sea turtle in the world are endangered or threatened, with the Green sea turtle being listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It will be up to the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether the new turtles will stay at SeaWorld and whether the adult turtles will be given opportunity to mate again next year.

“No matter how exquisite it may seem, as if it were some sort of magic, evolution is at most a good trick… and there is a way to make it work. In case of turtle evolution, a major part of the trick was found to be embryonic folding.”

Dr Shigeru Kuratani
Riken Center for Developmental Biology

Ever wondered how the turtle got its shell? So has a Japanese team of scientist and they decided to investigate the subject by comparing turtle embryos with those of chicks and mice.

In turtles, it is the ribs that grow outward and fuse together to form the shell, formally known as the carapace. Having your ribs folded around your body is such a great leap from being a soft bodied animal that scientists have long puzzled over how this change happened in the course of evolution. Just like mammals and birds, turtles hail from a soft-bodied ancestor without any external carapace.

Through their embryological studies, the Japanese team of researchers from the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, was able to identify the key event in the development of a turtle embryo that changes its fundamental “body plan”; the moment when the upper part of its body wall folds in on itself, forcing the ribs outward. This folding process results in a thickening of the deep layer of the turtle’s skin that maps out the position of the shell. As the turtle embryo grows bigger, the folding prevents the ribs from growing inwards.

“In the early embryo, the muscles and skeleton are in similar positions to those of the chicken and mouse”, Dr Kuratani explains.

Last year, a 220-million-year-old fossil was found in China, consisting of a fossilized turtle with an incomplete shell covering the underside of it body.

“The developmental stage of the modern turtle, when the ribs have not encapsulated the shoulder blade yet, resembles the (body) of this fossil species,” says Dr Kuratani.

The team has not yet been able to determine what causes the folding to happen in the first place

“That belongs to a future project,” says Dr Kuratani.

A Cape Cod company is now launching a timer that might help save dwindling populations of sea turtles from being decimated by fishing nets.

The new device is a 7-inch (18 cm) long silver cylinder capable of keeping track of how long a net has been submerged. Federal research indicates that a vast majority of entangled sea turtles will survive if they are rescued and given a chance to breath within 50 minutes.

Green sea turtle –Chelonia mydas : Picture by Mila Zinkova

As soon as the device reaches a depth of at least two metres, it will start recording water depth every 30 seconds and it will also make note of any time-limit breaches. Since the honour system might not be enough, the timer has been built to save its data for later download by marine authorities.

Fishermen using the timer will not only help save the sea turtles; they may also be able to save themselves from more onerous regulations, such as no-fishing zones. The timer is naturally not a one-size fits all fix-all to the problem with turtles being drowned in fishing nets, but it might prove useful for certain types of nets in certain conditions.

The logger was built under a $25,000 federal contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by Onset Computer Corp., a Bourne-based supplier of data loggers for energy and environmental monitoring.

Sorry for the silence over Halloween. Posting will now hopefully return to normal with at least one post every or every other day. This first post will be somewhat of a link post catching up on some of the fishy news that happened last week.

First of is an update on the Atlantic Blue fin Tuna. Despite good signs going into the Marrakesh tuna conference the outcome was very bad with the quote for eastern blue fin tuna being set to 22,000 tons, 50 per cent higher than scientific advice. Last years quota was 29,000 tons but it is believed that a total of 61,000 tons were brought ashore when counting illegal catches. These levels are unsustainable and the blue fin tuna populations are near a collapse. You can read more about this here

Another Tuna news. A fisherman out of San Diego is believed to have caught the largest yellow fin tuna ever caught. The tuna weighed in at 381.1-pound. View a video here.

Time to stop talking about tunas and start talking about something completely different, snakeheads. A new study has shown that snakeheads are proving much less damaging to the native fauna than expected. They do not seem to be destroying populations of native fish such as largemouth and peacock bass. The scientist examined the stomach content of 127 snakeheads and found one of the most common pray to be other snakeheads. They found 13 snakeheads, one bluegill, 11 mosquitofish, seven warmouth, two peacock bass, several lizards, bufo toads, small turtles, a rat and a snake. No remains of largemouth bass were found.

Another interesting article posted this last week is this one that tells the story of the mass gharial die of that happened last winter when half the worlds population of this once common animal. Scientist finally thinks they know why this happened. Something that might help save the worlds last 100 specimens.

That is it for this time but I might post more post like this during the week if I decide that there are more news that are to important to miss.

Alligator Snapping Turtles carry a reputation of fear, weighing in at over 200 lbs (90 kg) and packing a bite that earned the word Alligator in its name. Perhaps, the last place you would expect to find such a fearsome reptile, would be in the bustling city of New York. That is unless, like 45lb fluffy, you were housed there to protect the illegal drugs of your owner. Fluffy was rescued during a Long Island drug raid. Since his rescue, he has been relocated to a New England Aquarium as an attraction for their new Killer Instincts exhibit.

So, while Fluffy’s owner may be facing some hard time in the big house, Fluffy will be living a care free life in a turtle appropriate and drug-free environment. Congratulations Fluffy.

For more information on Alligator Snapping Turtles and a picture of Fluffy visit: http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1669

picture provided by Creative Commons at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/.

 (disclaimer: Creative Commons has no affiliation to the AC or the views or thoughts published in this article.)