Eastern Snake-necked Turtle

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Keeping long-necked turtles

Chelodina longicollis – Eastern snake-necked Turtle

The Eastern snake-necked turtle, also known as the Eastern long-necked turtle, can be found across most of NSW and is the most widespread species of freshwater turtle in Australia. They typically reside in lakes, swamps, dams, slow moving rivers and inland waterways and can be found wandering on land.

Eastern snake-necked turtles can be successfully kept in captivity given they are kept in an appropriate indoor or outdoor enclosure but as they can live up to 50 years, a long term plan needs to made for their care.

Introduction to the long-necked turtle

Watch Introduction to long-necked turtle. (1:14)

A Taronga Zoo keeper explains the characteristics of the long necked turtle

Transcript of Introduction to the long-necked turtle.

Narrator: Toronga Zoo keeper

So, what we have here is an Eastern Snake-necked Turtle also known as a Long-necked Turtle. In some places they even may call it a Long-necked Tortoise but it’s actually an Eastern Long-necked Turtle.

These guys are found in waterways around the east coast of Australia. They like to live in streams, sort of dammy areas and they’re probably one of our most common turtles that we find. So they’re a very sought after pet.

These guys like to inhabit waterways so they spend ninety, probably around ninety per cent of their time in the water. They will come out to bask on a nice sunny day. They act more like fish. So, unlike other reptiles that spend the majority of their time on land, these little guys just spend a lot of time swimming around searching for food like small fish, insects, crayfish. So, these guys are called Long-necked Turtles. Some people like to call them tortoises.

What a tortoise is it’s an animal that lives on the land and there’s no true tortoises in Australia. A turtle has webbed feet or flippers like this little guy. A tortoise has feet like an elephant so that lets us know that it walks on the land and that’s how we tell the difference.

So, if you ever see one of these on the ground crossing the road because they like to cross the roads when it’s raining, it’s actually an Eastern Long-necked Turtle, not a tortoise.

[End of transcript]