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April 13, 2018

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Weird Aussie turtle is on endangered species list

Source: AFP | 00:01 UTC+8 April 13, 2018 | Print Edition

Boasting a green, punk hairdo and the unusual ability to breathe through its backside, an Australian turtle has become famous overnight — but not only for its eccentricity.

Unfortunately, just as many of us are discovering the Mary River Turtle’s tantalizing traits, it has become the latest creature to join the “EDGE of Existence” list of endangered species compiled by the Zoological Society of London.

A native of Queensland, Australia, the turtle was one of 100 reptiles added to the catalog this week.

It lives only in the Mary River from which it took its name.

The inventory has no shortage of weird and wonderful creatures — a limbless lizard, the world’s largest sea turtle, a blind snake, and a chameleon named after Tarzan.

But the Mary River Turtle might just be the strangest of them all.

“The turtle is highly distinctive,” states a ZSL description of the species known to scientists as Elusor macrurus.

It can breathe underwater through specialized glands in butt organs known as cloaca — orifices through which the turtle excretes urine and waste, and lays eggs.

“This turtle is able to spend so much time underwater — up to three days — without coming up for air due to its strange ability to breathe through its bum,” Rikki Gumbs of Imperial College London said.

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