The eastern long-necked turtle of Australia has a neck so long it cannot retract its head into its shell the way most turtles do. Instead it folds the neck sideways along the body, tucking it under the rim of the shell, which is why it is also called a side-necked turtle. The neck can reach lengths equal to or exceeding the shell itself, giving the animal a reach that lets it strike at prey with a speed that does not match its otherwise unhurried reputation.
It hunts in the freshwater lakes, rivers, and swamps of southeastern Australia, eating fish, frogs, tadpoles, aquatic invertebrates, and anything else it can ambush in the shallows. The strike is a rapid lunge, the long neck extending in a fraction of a second to close the distance between the turtle and prey that thought it was safely out of range. Many animals have misjudged that distance. The neck is consistently longer than it looks.
The defense mechanism is the other notable feature. When threatened, the eastern long-neck turtle releases a secretion from glands on either side of its body that smells strongly enough to deter most predators and to linger on human hands for an unpleasant amount of time after handling. The smell has been compared to old cheese, rotting vegetation, and things that are difficult to describe politely. It is effective. The turtle’s other common name is the stinker, which tells you most of what you need to know about the experience of picking one up uninvited.
Despite the formidable neck and the chemical defense, eastern long-necks are among the most commonly seen freshwater turtles in southeastern Australia, basking on logs and rocks in urban waterways, suburban ponds, and city parks with the relaxed confidence of an animal that has been doing this for a very long time. They are opportunistic and adaptable, tolerating degraded water quality and habitat disturbance better than most freshwater turtle species, which has allowed them to persist in landscapes that have been heavily modified by human activity.
The Overland Walk
Eastern long-neck turtles make overland movements between water bodies, particularly females searching for nesting sites in sandy or loamy soil away from the water. These overland journeys bring them into contact with roads, and road mortality is a significant cause of adult death across their range. A turtle crossing a suburban road moves at a pace that gives drivers ample time to stop, which means most road deaths are avoidable and most are not avoided.
The eggs are buried in clutches of 8 to 24 and left entirely unattended. Foxes and ravens locate and excavate nests with high efficiency across suburban areas, and nest predation rates in urban environments can be severe enough to affect recruitment into the adult population. The turtle that survives roads and foxes and makes it to adulthood can live for over 50 years in the wild, accumulating in slow decades the experience of a water body it has known since before the suburbs around it existed.