So Ugly It's Cute
Saturday-Sunday, April 12-13, 2025
So Ugly It’s Cute
Today’s special animal friend is the matamata (or mata mata, or mata-mata), Chelus fimbriata, a freshwater turtle native to South America. This species is sometimes called the Amazon matamata, because it is found in the Amazon River basin, as well as on the island of Trinidad. The other species in the Chelus genus, C. orinocensis, is found in the Orinoco basin. The two species were considered the same until 2020.
The matamata is pretty big. A full-grown adult’s carapace can be 18 inches long. A long neck and large head make them look larger. They can weigh over 35 lbs. They have a very lumpy carapace with three keels (front-to-back ridges) and conical scutes. The skin of their head and limbs is also very bumpy, creating an overall impression of a big rock covered with gunk when they lie at the bottom of a muddy stream.
Matamatas have very poor eyesight. Good eyesight wouldn’t be much use at the bottom of the turbid Amazon. They have excellent hearing. In addition, their bodies are covered with flaps of skin, tubercules, and barbels that are extremely sensitive to touch and water motion. Matamatas are not good swimmers. They sit on the bottom, looking like random debris, until they sense a fish or aquatic invertebrate near their mouth. Then they slurp it up. Sometimes they will crowd a group of fish toward the stream bank to make slurping easier.
Matamata mating takes place in October to December (summer). To quote the Smithsonian National Zoo, “A male begins the courting process by extending its head toward a female and opening and closing its mouth. It also hyperextends its hind legs and moves the lateral flaps on its head.” The ladies dig it, and at least he’s not at risk of cannibalism. Females lay 12 to 24 eggs in a nest of riverside vegetation. The eggs hatch in about 200 days, which is over six months.
Matamatas are a species of Least Concern according to IUCN. They are considered Near Threatened in Colombia. They were once a popular source of food in their local environment, but other turtle species are now preferred. The greatest threat is collection for the pet trade. Export from Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil is prohibited, but enforcement is, as best, hit or miss. They can be bred in captivity; both zoos and private breeders successfully hatch clutches.
They are considered an advanced reptile pet due to their very specific water quality needs and live food requirements. However, because they are sedentary, they do not need as large a container as some other aquatic turtle species, and they won’t bite your fingers off like a real snapping turtle.
This gentleman has an outdoor pool for his matamata.
TSAF does not recommend keeping weird foreign reptiles as pets.
Good morning, animal friends! The W household will be galloping away in all directions today. Several of us have outdoor activities. The forecast high is 60Fs, but it's not supposed to rain, so that's something.
Today's special animal friend is the piping plover, Charadrius melodus. These small shorebirds are found on the Atlantic coast from Virginia north to Canada (subspecies C. m. melodus) and to the western Great Lakes area and the northern Great Plains (subspecies C. m. circumcinctus). They are up to 7.5 inches long with a wingspan around 15 inches. Piping plovers have a pale brown back with white accents, white underside, and black around the neck and on the forehead. The sexes are nearly identical, but the black band on the chest of the male is wider during the breeding season.
Piping plovers live on beaches and sand flats near the Atlantic Ocean, lakes, or rivers. Scuttling across the beach near the high-water line, they forage by sight, eating insects, worms, and small crustaceans. They migrate to the Bahamas, Cuba, other islands, and the north coast of South America in winter, returning to their breeding range in late March to early April.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp2v-mwecFM
Males establish breeding territories on sandy ground above high tide or water lines. They run along their boundary lines to discourage other males and engage in defensive displays by fluffing and calling. A male will court a female with flight displays, feather-fluffing, and silly walks in a circle around her. They are monogamous during the breeding season. The male scrapes several shallow depressions in his territory. The couple does not mate until the female has chosen an acceptable hollow, where she will usually lay four eggs.
Both parents incubate the eggs for about 27 days and then feed and protect them for another 30 days. The young are considered "fledged" when they can fly 50 yards. Like the whip-poor-will, the parents will use the "broken wing display" to distract predators from the young.
Piping plovers are considered Near Threatened by IUCN. The population has been increasing during the 21st century and is estimated to be around 6,500 individuals, about equally divided between the two subspecies. Conservation efforts include habitat protection and expansion and control of predators, which include dogs, cats, foxes, raccoons, skunks, and other mammals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG1wcOckawU
A famous pair of plovers, Monty and Rose, nested at Montrose Beach (get it?) in Chicago in 2019. The pair hatched three chicks in July of 2019. Care of these plovers included cancelling a music festival scheduled for August 2019. The pair returned to Chicago and hatched chicks in 2020. They returned in April of 2021 and laid four eggs. Unfortunately, these eggs were eaten on Wednesday, June 2, by a skunk which reached into their fenced enclosure. The adults were unharmed, and they are very likely to produce more eggs this summer, although second or third nests usually have fewer than four eggs.
https://www.chicagopipingplovers.org/
Environmental groups are active throughout the piping plover's range in both the United States and Canada, taking practical steps to rebuild the population of these cute little birds, one nest at a time.