Speaking of mud turtles among egg turtles, people are usually familiar with helmets, red faces, and fruit pits. Today, I would like to introduce a relatively unpopular mud turtle species: Harrell mud turtle.

Chinese name: Harrera's mud turtle

English name: Herrera's mud turtle

Latin name: Kinosternon Kinosternon herrerai

As a mud turtle species, Harrera can be described as a Big guy, the maximum adult body length can reach 17-18 cm. Although this size is not really large, it is more outstanding in the small and exquisite mud turtle group.

And Harrell is not very gregarious in the mud turtle family, because its appearance is not similar to most mud turtles, and it looks out of place and not only in size.

Compared to other mud turtle species, Harrera's body shape is also relatively flat, and the width will be larger.

For example, red-faced mud turtles, white-lipped mud turtles, striped mud turtles, helmeted mud turtles, and eastern mud turtles can completely close their plastrons. Harrell is unwilling to follow the characteristics of the mud turtle family, and its plastron cannot be completely closed.

And Harrell is not only a maverick in the mud turtle family, the male Harrera is often larger than the female Harrera, which is also different from most turtle species.

This may be because, known as the king of mud turtles, it needs to show its pride in appearance.

However, in the perception of many people, Harrera does not have a prominent appearance. Finished like charcoal, rough and gray.

If you think so, you really don't have a friend who has a Harrera.

Of course, many downhill turtles are like this, and it is difficult for people to find its beauty in terms of appearance, and this is not only the case with Harrera. The helmets that have swept the market this year and are sought after by everyone are everywhere in the downhill helmets, and there are fewer outstanding offspring bred artificially. In the early years, many people also regarded helmets this way.

Beautiful Harrera, with dark yellow or brown carapace, lemon-colored head covered with dots or short stripes, and a V-shaped mark on the tip of the nose is also a signature appearance of many Harrera .

Harrera has a large head with a prominently hooked beak on the upper beak and two prominently large tentacles on the chin. In fact, I think the excellent Harrera head tattoo is not much better than the narrow bridge known as the king of egg turtles.

The reason why many people call Harrera the king of mud turtles is not only because of Harrell's prominent figure among mud turtles, but also because of Harrera's fierce nature, its character is also similar to that of a narrow bridge, and it is extremely interactive in captivity. powerful.

Originating in Harrera in southern Mexico, it has no hibernation habit, but its tolerance to low temperature is not too weak, and there is no problem without heating in winter in southern my country.

However, the egg-laying activities of Harrera are often carried out in winter, and it is recommended to use heating for breeding. And for turtles that do not have hibernation habits in winter, there is really no need to let them spend the winter in cold water in winter.

Most mud turtles don't like deep water levels in their living environment, and Harrell is no exception in this regard. During the special mating period, male turtles often choke on water because they are too excited, resulting in the accumulation of water in the lungs. In the end, they go to the end of the turtle life. It can be said that they die under the pomegranate skirt.

Therefore, it is not recommended to keep the water level too deep for Harrera, of course, it is still possible to keep the water level at 20-30 cm. For hatchlings, it is recommended to have a water level of 5-8 cm, and it is not recommended for sub-adults to easily exceed the water depth of 20 cm. Although I have often used a water level of more than 30 cm when raising Harrell mud turtles in the past, this does not mean that the water level conditions are the most suitable for Harrera. If you want to breed in deep water, you need to give the turtles an adaptation process, and set Resting tiptoes such as tall stones or dead wood.

Under the condition of paying attention to the water level, the rearing of Harrera is relatively easy, and the requirements for water quality are not high. In fact, most mud turtle species use dirty water to raise less health problems. Setting up more obstacles to avoid obstacles in the environment will also make the turtle feel more secure and grow healthily, such as laying bottom sand or placing some longan leaves, lazy leaves, etc.

If you want the Harrera in your hand to appear more gorgeous, you can choose to use a bright white environment for breeding. Harrera's hair color is easier, and a short-term white environment It can cause it to turn yellow.

Harrera's irritable character with the narrow bridge makes many people keep it in isolation. Of course, this is a relatively safe way, but in fact, if you grow up together, it may not be impossible to breed them together. Even if it is a large turtle, in a large enough environment and there are obstacles to avoid, it can be mixed. .

A lot of information about Harrera shows that this is an omnivorous turtle species, and occasionally has the habit of eating vegetarian food, but the Harrera in captivity basically eat meat or feed mainly. Meat such as fish and shrimp is quite favorite.

Harrera mud turtle is a relatively unpopular species. Even though egg turtles are extremely popular, and the popularity of mud turtles among egg turtles has exploded in the past two years, Harrera is still less popular. Someone has been in contact.

This is not because Harrera is not popular. The most important reason is that there are very few circulations in the market. Many people have heard of the king of mud turtles, but they often want to experience it. Of course, there are more people who don't know about this breed.

As far as I know, there are very few farms in China that have Harrera species that can germinate every year. However, even if a few players and farmers own Harrell, a considerable number of them cannot successfully breed Harrell turtle seedlings.

This first stems from the extreme scarcity of Harrell male turtles. As far as I know, Harrell can be said to be almost nine out of 10 female individuals, and many players are unable to play due to lack of male turtles. Breed.

Even if there are complete male and female Harrera breeding groups, the difficulty of hatching is a high threshold for breeding and emergence. It is well known that the hatching difficulty of narrow bridges is relatively high, as is the hatching of Harrera.

The diapause period is a protective mechanism for many tropical tortoises to improve the hatching rate, resulting in extremely long hatching time, and the egg development rate and hatching rate of the fertilized Harrera tortoises are not optimistic.