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Hopkins, A. L. (1973). The turtle, malayemys subtrijuga, as a potential agent in the control of schistosomiasis vector snails. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 67(2), 309–310. 
Added by: Admin (09 May 2010 16:30:59 UTC)
Resource type: Journal Article
BibTeX citation key: Hopkins1973
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Categories: General
Keywords: Geoemydidae, Habitat = habitat, Malayemys, Malayemys subtrijuga, Schildkröten = turtles + tortoises, Südostasien = South East Asia
Creators: Hopkins
Collection: Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
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Abstract     
Malayemys subtrijuga Observations were made on 21 juvenile individuals over a period of 6 months under lab conditions. (1) When a well fed individual is placed in a tank containing a variety of both living and dead organisms he will eat only the snails. If these are Australorbis glabratus of a diam of approx 1 cm, then the rate is greater than 30 per day (quantitative data in preparation). Only after consuming all the snails of greater than 1 mm in diam and searching the tank for from 4 to 7 days will the turtle attempt to eat other organisms. (2) Upon locating a snail these turtles usually first touch it with their snouts before slowly grasping it with their jaws. This preliminary touching with the snout produces a successful escape reaction in other living prey and frequently leads to pushing non-living food out of reach. Such behaviour is best adapted to the capture of organisms with extremely limited mobility and which are attached to a substrate. (3) The jaw structure has been modified for crushing shells (Pritchard, 1967) to such an extent that they have a markedly reduced cutting ability. A starved M. subtrijuga will attack an earthworm or other dead organisms, but he usually is unable to bite off segments that are small enough to be swallowed. These observations indicate that M. subtrijuga is so highly specialized in both feeding behaviour and jaw structure that its diet is limited to snails. If this conclusion can be substantiated by field tests under natural conditions, then this turtle could be a significant factor in the control of schistosomiasis vector snails, since it might be introduced into new environments with considerable assurance that it would continue to feed on the target organism and not adopt new dietary habits.
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