![]() Adults tend to be more herbivorous than juveniles, but both will opportunistically eat aquatic invertebrates, fish, frog eggs and tadpoles, aquatic snakes, and a wide variety of aquatic plants and algae. Red-eared slider turtle have an omnivorous diet. Consequently in some parts of Australia, wild living populations are now found in urban and semi-rural areas. Red-eared slider turtles have been smuggled into, illegally kept and illegally released in Australia. Consequently, they now occur in freshwater ecosystems in many developed countries with high densities in urban wetlands. However, the animals grow rapidly into large adults and are capable of biting their owners, resulting in them being dumped or released from captivity. They are often obtained as pets when they are very small and look attractive. Red-eared slider turtles became a popular pet animal because of its small size (as a juvenile), simple husbandry requirements and reasonably low price. The red-eared slider turtle has been exploited by the pet animal industry and since the 1970s, with massive numbers being produced on turtle farms in the USA for the international pet trade. Infection of humans caused by the handling of turtles has led to restrictions on the sale of it in the USA. Red-eared slider turtles are recognised reservoirs for the Salmonella bacterium. It is considered an environmental pest outside its natural range because the species competes with native turtles for food, nesting areas and basking sites. ![]() ![]() ![]() The red-eared slider turtle is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘one of the world’s worst invasive alien species’. ![]()
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