Animal
Pig-nosed turtle
The pig-nosed turtle has a nose like a pig and flippers like a sea turtle. It lives in rivers in New Guinea and northern Australia.
The pig-nosed turtle is a large freshwater turtle with a snout like a pig's, a soft, leathery shell and big flippers like a sea turtle's. It lives in rivers, lagoons and swamps of southern New Guinea and northern Australia and eats mostly fruits and plants. Heavy collection of its eggs and adults has made it endangered.
Carettochelys insculpta is a large freshwater turtle of southern New Guinea and Australia's Northern Territory, with a leathery, scuteless shell and paddle-like forelimbs. Eisemberg, van Dijk, Georges and Amepou assessed it as Endangered (A2bd+4bd) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 28 May 2017, published 2018), mainly because of unsustainable collection of adults and eggs for food and of eggs and hatchlings for the international pet trade.
Photo: Bjoertvedt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meet the pig-nosed turtle
The pig-nosed turtle has a nose like a pig's.
Its legs are big, flat flippers.
Its shell is soft, like leather.
The pig-nosed turtle gets its name from its nose, which looks like a pig's snout. Unlike most turtles, it has no hard plates on its shell: the shell is covered in leathery skin, brown to dark gray on top and cream underneath.
Its front legs are big, flat flippers, a lot like a sea turtle's, each with two claws. It is a big turtle: females are grown up when their shell is about 38 to 41 centimeters long, and they can reach 57 centimeters.
Carettochelys insculpta belongs to the family Carettochelyidae. The Animal Diversity Web describes a pig-like nose, a shell without bony scutes and with a leathery texture like that of softshell turtles, a cream plastron and a brown to dark gray carapace, flat, broad limbs with two claws each, enlarged pectoral flippers resembling a sea turtle's, strong jaws and a short tail; females tend to be larger, and males have longer, thicker tails.
The IUCN gives a female carapace length of up to 57 centimeters, with maturity at 38 centimeters on the Daly River to 41 centimeters or more in the Kikori region of Papua New Guinea.
Quick facts
- Group
- Reptile
- Length
- 0.38 to 0.57 m
- Lifespan in the wild
- 38.4 years
Rivers of New Guinea and northern Australia
Pig-nosed turtles live in rivers, lakes and swamps.
They live in New Guinea and in the north of Australia.
Pig-nosed turtles live in two places. In southern New Guinea, both in Papua New Guinea and in Indonesia's Papua, they live in rivers and their deltas, grassy lagoons, swamps, lakes and waterholes of the lowlands. In Australia's Northern Territory, they live in a few river systems, including the Daly, Victoria and Alligator rivers.
There they live in clear, shallow, flowing water and in billabongs and plunge pools.
The IUCN gives a range in the rivers of southern New Guinea, from the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea to the Mimika region of Indonesian Papua (records from Lake Jamur farther west appear to be trade specimens), and in the Victoria, Daly, Fitzmaurice, East Alligator and South Alligator river systems of the Northern Territory, and possibly other rivers. In New Guinea it uses rivers with their deltas and estuarine reaches, grassy lagoons, swamps, lakes and waterholes of the southern lowlands; in Australia it appears restricted to seasonally clear, shallow, continuously flowing waters of the Daly drainage and to billabongs and plunge pools of the Alligator Rivers region.
About 90% of the global population lives in New Guinea and about 10% in northern Australia (IUCN).
Continent
Its habitat
Where can you find this animal?
- Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
- Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Lives here naturally · Countries and seas named by a scientific source
The IUCN lists pig-nosed turtles in Australia (Northern Territory only), Papua New Guinea and Indonesia (Papua only). They live only in rivers of southern New Guinea and in a few river systems of Australia's Northern Territory, so most of each shaded country has none.
Places: Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
Source: iucn-red-list · checked October 2026
Sightings recorded · Records of wild sightings (GBIF)
Counts of GBIF records of wild observations (human and machine) and preserved specimens. Records include introduced populations, vagrants, escaped or released animals and misidentifications, so a country with records is not necessarily part of the native range.
Wild sightings have been recorded in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, United States, Japan, Canada and Taiwan.
Source: gbif · checked October 2026
Range maps show where scientists say an animal lives, often country by country. An animal may live in only part of a country shown, and sightings records can include animals that wandered far from home.
Fruits from the riverbank
Pig-nosed turtles eat mostly plants.
They eat fruits and leaves of plants that grow along rivers.
Pig-nosed turtles are omnivores: they eat both plants and animals, but mostly plants: fruits, leaves and stems of plants growing along the riverbank, and water plants. Young turtles start out with small water animals such as insect larvae, small shrimps and snails.
They also eat some shelled animals (molluscs and crustaceans), insects and fish, and mammals, probably eaten after they have died.
The IUCN describes the species as omnivorous but feeding principally on fruits, leaves and stems of riparian vegetation and on aquatic plants, with some molluscs, crustaceans, insects, fish and mammals (likely eaten as carrion) also consumed (Georges et al. 2008, and references therein). The Animal Diversity Web adds that hatchlings first live on leftover yolk and then eat small aquatic animals such as insect larvae, small shrimp and snails, while adults prefer plant matter such as flowers, fruits and leaves from the riverbank.
Did you know?
Movements of babies in nearby eggs can help them hatch sooner.
Vibrations from brothers and sisters in nearby eggs can make babies hatch sooner.
Hatching can be expedited by sibling vibrations (Doody et al. 2012, via IUCN).
A snorkel nose and flippers
Its front legs are big flippers.
On land it walks in a clumsy way.
So it stays in the water most of the time.
The pig-nosed turtle's big front flippers make it look a little like a sea turtle swimming in a river. On land, though, its flippers make it walk clumsily, so it spends most of its time in the water.
Its shell has no hard plates on top, only leathery skin, and its jaws are strong and its tail short.
The Animal Diversity Web notes that the enlarged, flipper-like forelimbs give a rather clumsy gait on land, so the turtles spend most of their time in water; it describes adult size as depending on habitat, with coastal individuals much larger than riverine ones. The shell lacks bony scutes and has a leathery texture, like that of softshell turtles.
Babies that hatch in the rain
Mother turtles dig nests on sandbanks at night.
Rain or a flood soaking the nest makes the babies hatch!
Female pig-nosed turtles nest together at night on sandbanks along rivers or by the sea. A female usually lays two clutches every second year, on average about 10 to 21 eggs each, depending on the place. Warmer eggs become females, cooler eggs males.
The eggs take on average about 65 to 72 days. Hatching is set off when heavy rain or a flood soaks the nest. Hatchlings are about 4 to 6 centimeters long.
The IUCN describes gregarious night nesting on riverside or coastal marine sandbanks, two clutches every second year (Doody et al. 2003a, b, 2009), and average clutch sizes from 10 (Daly River) to 21 eggs (Kikori region), range 7 to 26 or more. The species shows embryonic diapause and temperature-dependent sex determination, with females from warmer and males from cooler temperatures (Webb et al. 1986; Young et al. 2004). Hatching is triggered by anoxia when torrential rain or flooding swamps the nest, and can be sped up by vibrations from siblings (Doody et al. 2001b, 2012). Incubation averages 65 days in Papua New Guinea and 72 days on the Daly River; hatchlings measure 41 to 56 millimeters and weigh 21 to 30 grams. Females appear to mature at about 25 years, with a generation time of about 30 to 40 years (Heaphy 1990).
Moving with the seasons
In the dry season, many pig-nosed turtles crowd into river pools.
In the wet season, they are found in deep, muddy water.
Pig-nosed turtles move with the seasons. In Australia, when the dry season shrinks the Alligator River into a chain of pools, many turtles gather together in them. In the wet season they are found in deep, muddy water, and they usually move into the lower floodplains near the river mouths.
Nests face dangers too: predators, mostly monitor lizards called goannas, can take up to a quarter of the eggs, and floods can destroy up to a fifth.
The Animal Diversity Web describes dense dry-season aggregations in the Alligator River when it becomes an intermittent series of pools, and wet-season use of deep, turbid water, with many turtles moving into the lower estuarine floodplains. The IUCN reports natural egg losses of up to 25% to predators, notably goannas (Doody et al. 2006), and up to 20% each to flooding and to infertility or developmental problems. After invasive cane toads reached the Daly River in 2003, monitor lizard numbers fell and pig-nosed turtle recruitment rose by about 20% (Doody et al. 2006, via IUCN).
Did you know?
Warm nests make more girl turtles.
In pig-nosed turtle nests, warmer eggs become females and cooler eggs become males.
Temperature-dependent sex determination: females at warmer, males at cooler incubation temperatures (IUCN).
Endangered
Pig-nosed turtles are in danger.
Many of their eggs and grown-ups are taken from the wild.
Some people now protect their nesting beaches.
The pig-nosed turtle is endangered. In New Guinea, where about 90% of them live, many adults and eggs are collected for food, and in Indonesia's Papua huge numbers of eggs are collected so the babies can be sold abroad as pets. Market surveys in one region of Papua New Guinea found about 57% fewer turtles traded between 1980 and 2010.
In Australia, the population appeared stable, and the turtles are protected in Kakadu National Park. Since 2009, a project in Papua New Guinea's Kikori region has worked with local communities to protect them.
Eisemberg, van Dijk, Georges and Amepou assessed Carettochelys insculpta as Endangered (A2bd+4bd) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 28 May 2017, published 2018; previously Vulnerable, 1996): numbers in representative Papua New Guinea markets fell about 57% between about 1980 and 2010 (Eisemberg et al. 2011), and declines of at least 60% over three generations are predicted. In Indonesian Papua, 1.5 to 2 million eggs a year were collected in the late 1990s for incubation and export of hatchlings, and 26 seizures between 2000 and 2015 held 29,692 live turtles, the second-largest number of seized live animals of any tortoise or freshwater turtle (CITES CoP17 Doc. 73). In the Kikori region only about 2 to 3% of nests survived to hatching. Australian populations (about 10% of the total) appeared stable over about 20 years but face habitat degradation from water extraction, mining pollution and sedimentation.
The species was listed on CITES Appendix II in 2004 and is protected in Kakadu National Park. The Piku Project has run monitoring, protection and education in the Kikori region since 2009, and the landowners of Wau Creek, a major nesting area, ban the harvest of turtles and eggs during the nesting season (IUCN).
IUCN Red List
How is the pig-nosed turtle doing in the wild?
- Least Concern
- Near Threatened
- Vulnerable
- Endangered (this animal)
- Critically Endangered
- Extinct in the Wild
- Extinct
Endangered
At very high risk of disappearing from the wild.
Amazing facts
-
Heavy rain soaking the nest makes baby pig-nosed turtles hatch.
Hatching is set off when heavy rain or a flood soaks the nest.
Embryonic diapause; hatching triggered by anoxia from torrential rain or flooding (Doody et al. 2001b, 2012, via IUCN).
-
Movements of babies in nearby eggs can help them hatch sooner.
Vibrations from brothers and sisters in nearby eggs can make babies hatch sooner.
Hatching can be expedited by sibling vibrations (Doody et al. 2012, via IUCN).
-
Its flippers look like a sea turtle's flippers.
Its big front flippers look like a sea turtle's, but it lives in rivers.
Enlarged pectoral flippers resembling those of sea turtles (ADW).
-
Warm nests make more girl turtles.
In pig-nosed turtle nests, warmer eggs become females and cooler eggs become males.
Temperature-dependent sex determination: females at warmer, males at cooler incubation temperatures (IUCN).
Words to know
- flipper
- a broad, flat limb used for swimming
- carapace
- the top part of a turtle's shell
- clutch
- a group of eggs laid at one time
- sandbank
- a raised bank of sand in or beside a river or the sea
- omnivore
- an animal that eats both plants and animals
- endangered
- at very high risk of dying out in the wild
Discovery challenge
-
What does a pig-nosed turtle's nose look like?
What gives the pig-nosed turtle its name?
Which feature is the source of Carettochelys insculpta's common name?
- A pig's snout
- A bird's beak
- An elephant's trunk
Show the answer
A pig's snout
A pig's nose!
Its fleshy nose looks like a pig's snout.
A pig-like nose (ADW).
-
What makes baby pig-nosed turtles hatch?
What sets off hatching in pig-nosed turtle nests?
What triggers hatching in Carettochelys insculpta?
- Rain or a flood soaking the nest
- Snow falling
- The mother tapping the eggs
Show the answer
Rain or a flood soaking the nest
Rain!
Heavy rain or a flood soaking the nest makes them hatch.
Anoxia from torrential rain or nest flooding (IUCN).
-
What does a pig-nosed turtle mostly eat?
What makes up most of a pig-nosed turtle's diet?
What does the IUCN say the species feeds on principally?
- Fruits, leaves and water plants
- Only fish
- Only insects
Show the answer
Fruits, leaves and water plants
Mostly plants!
Fruits, leaves and stems of riverbank plants, and water plants.
Fruits, leaves and stems of riparian vegetation, and aquatic plants (IUCN).
-
What is special about its shell?
How is the pig-nosed turtle's shell different from most turtles' shells?
How does the carapace of Carettochelys differ from that of most turtles?
- It is leathery, with no hard plates
- It is covered in spikes
- It is bright green
Show the answer
It is leathery, with no hard plates
It is soft, like leather!
It has no hard plates, only leathery skin.
No bony scutes; a leathery texture like softshell turtles (ADW).
Places where you might see it
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Watch
Country
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea covers the eastern half of New Guinea, the world's second largest island, plus many smaller islands. Its tall mountains, rainforests and coral reefs are home to about 40 kinds of birds-of-paradise. More than 800 languages are spoken there, and the 2024 census counted 10,185,363 people.
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Watch
Country
Australia
Australia is a country and the smallest continent, surrounded by ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Much of its middle is dry and flat, most people live near the coast, and its animals include kangaroos, koalas and the platypus, a mammal that lays eggs.
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea covers the eastern half of New Guinea, the world's second largest island, plus many smaller islands. Its tall mountains, rainforests and coral reefs are home to about 40 kinds of birds-of-paradise. More than 800 languages are spoken there, and the 2024 census counted 10,185,363 people.
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Alligator snapping turtle
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe the pig-nosed turtle's nose, flippers and leathery shell.
- Explain how flooding can trigger hatching.
- Explain how nest temperature affects whether babies are male or female.
- Explain why collecting eggs and adults can endanger a slow-growing turtle.
Recommended ages: 3 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might it help baby turtles to hatch when the nest floods?
- Why could a turtle that grows up at about 25 years be slow to recover from heavy collecting?
- How might local communities help protect nesting beaches?
Try at home or in class
- Flipper or foot: with a grown-up, move your hand through a bowl of water with fingers spread, then with fingers together like a flipper, and compare the push.
- Shell size: with a measuring tape, mark 38 and 57 centimeters on the floor to see how big a grown-up female's shell can be.
Key vocabulary: flipper, carapace, clutch, sandbank, omnivore, endangered
Where these facts come from
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF Occurrence Search , Global Biodiversity Information Facility (CC0 1.0 (backbone); occurrence counts are facts derived from records under CC0, CC BY and CC BY-NC)
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN terms of use (no redistribution of Red List data or range maps))
- Carettochelys insculpta (Eisemberg, van Dijk, Georges and Amepou, assessed 28 May 2017, published 2018) , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Carettochelys insculpta: justification, range, population, habitat, threats, use and trade, and conservation text , IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
- Carettochelys insculpta: IUCN Red List global assessment record (Eisemberg et al. 2018), IUCN checklist on GBIF , GBIF
- Carettochelys insculpta (pig-nosed turtle) , Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
- File:Carettochelys insculpta 01.JPG (7 November 2009, Bjoertvedt) , Wikimedia Commons
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file: Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA only (credited on each page))
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.