Woody makes his debut

[dae]

Wow they are very beautiful and well done to you for breeding them, it's fab news!!!

[harwood09]

You've got a very lovely looking group there how big is he? I have heard they can get quite large but thats about the extent of knowledge

[Geomyda]

Originally Posted by harwood09

You've got a very lovely looking group there how big is he? I have heard they can get quite large but thats about the extent of knowledge

Adult males tend to get larger and can top the scales at 12kg. Typically though a weight of 6/7kg is more common, and in terms of size, 44cm is a big one. Their weight and size of course makes them very vunerable to collection for the Asian Food trade and this species, like so many others in South east Asia is highly threatened by the Chinese markets.
They are by nature a very intelligent turtle, and in captivity become very tame. With a very omnivorous diet, they spend much of their time living out of water, almost Tortoise like. Mine share the Tropical house enclosure with Elongated Tortoises, (Indotestudo elongata), and Asian Leaf Turtles (Cyclemys dentata), the later being very much the smaller cousins of these magnificent beasts. One of the other common names of this species is the Orange headed Temple Turtle, and in South east Asia are often associated with Buddhist Temple ponds, were they feed off the offerings from the devotees.

[harwood09]

12kg jeez now that would be a big ol' turtle sounds like you have one very busy tropical house, thank you for the information

[SeeShell]

Congratulations; that's a great achievement. And that is a fantastic photo of the little guy hatching.
SS

[Lolly8]

Congratulations!Beautiful turtles and little one is so cute!

[Geomyda]

This little Asian "Orange headed" Temple turtle, is now out of the egg and off to explore his Tropical Wood:

[justmeandmytortoise]

Great pictures and so interesting to hear about them How many eggs do they lay and how many do you expect to have hatch? Will you be keeping them to increase stock and breeding potential

[Geomyda]

Originally Posted by justmeandmytortoise

Great pictures and so interesting to hear about them How many eggs do they lay and how many do you expect to have hatch? Will you be keeping them to increase stock and breeding potential

The clutch is five, and I think four are viable. These babies will be added to the European Studbook, and will hopefully join others in years to come in Captive breeding groups in Europe. As a very large Turtle species, they are not suitable as a typical pet species, but to date, few Zoos have yet managed to breed them.
My Grand daughter Olivia has named this one "Woody", but I think the others should be given Malay, or Thai names to reflect their species origin

[SeeShell]

That's a fantastic picture (another one!). The detail is amazing. How large will the orange headed temple turtle grow? I'm afraid I know very little about turtles but they are absolutely fascinating to look at.
SS
ps on a separate note was that you in the pic in this month's PRK taken at the 2nd International Congress (apologies if not!)