Product Description
Before the standard info, some interesting facts:
Only a very small handful of US breeders hatch Black Marsh Turtles regularly. A few really good breeders - and us...
Turtle people call them by their scientific name: Crassicollis. "The Smiling Terrapin" is our favorite common name for them. Both hatchlings and adults have a very low key, soft, ghostly aspect about their coloring and their demeanor...
Looking inside their hatching eggs - you see a bizarre little blue & black creature, which is almost an exact miniature of the adults. They do seem to have a smile and very soft yet distinct black and faded yellow/white coloring, and no matter how elaborate we make their lay areas, they're content to simply push out an egg or two right out in the open - anywhere on dry land, with little or no effort made to conceal their eggs...
Siebenrockiella crassicollis used to be imported regularly, but they often struggled to acclimate and almost never bred successfully. Our breeding group started in the early 1990's with two captive born hatchlings that came from an imported female. Once these two were old enough to reproduce we held back the first few year's hatchlings for the breeding group and added more captive born hatchlings and juveniles along the way. In 2005 we successfully combined the group with a pair of wild adults that we spent many months acclimating to our facility, and we have been successfully producing small numbers of them every spring/summer.
The basics: The Black Marsh Turtle is one of only two members of the genus Siebenrockiella. They're found in Southern Vietnam, through Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Sumatra, Java and Borneo...
They prefer the bottoms of quiet, very slow moving, shallow, overgrown swamps and waterways - where they eat mostly worms, snails & amphibians. They are omnivores eating some plants and fruits, and they are also fond of dead and decaying animals...
They are not at all aggressive and they do not fear people.
They are much more of a bottom walker than a swimmer and they stay small - our adults are barely 6 inches long, taking several years to reach full size and two adults will do fine in a 40 "breeder" aquarium or larger set up.
They don't mind winter nights in the upper 30s or summer days in the mid 90s so long as their water temps stay above 40 and below 85.
For decades they have been used for food and traditional medicine in Chinese markets. In recent years Black Marsh Turtle wild populations have been dropping and they are now endangered.
Black Marsh Turtles have been commonly kept as pets and as sacred animals in Southeast Asian Buddhist temples for centuries. As with all Turtle species, captive born juveniles are the best to keep both from the keeper's side and especially the conservation side...
We usually have a waiting list for the small numbers that we hatch so if we don't have any available contact us to reserve your's. Black Marsh Turtles are like shy little windows into quiet waterways and ecosystems of South East Asia, it's lands and it's culture. Captive breeding of this species makes it possible for anyone to connect to this part of our world...
Other Details
Warranty Information
We offer a 7 day health guarantee on our captive bred animals only provided all conditions are met as listed in our Terms and Conditions page.
Reviews
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Black Marsh Turtle
Turtle is perfect. Beautiful, healthy and eating well.
