General Description: A light colored water turtle with a long snout and a flat, leathery shell.

Taxonomy: Softshell Turtles (Trionychidae).

Technical Description: Shell size to 18 inches. Shell extremely flat (like a pair of pancakes), flexible, and leathery (not hard as is typical of most turtles). Neck long and flexible. Nostrils at the end of a long, pig-like snout. Feet webbed to form large, broad paddles.

Diet: A lie-in-wait, ambush hunter, these turtles hide in the mud at the bottom of a pond and prey on passing crayfish, aquatic insects, worms, tadpoles, and aquarium fish.

Habitat: Slow moving water in rivers and ponds.

Range: Softshells are basically eastern turtles, but this species ranges along the US-Mexico border in Texas and New Mexico, with disjunct populations in south-central Arizona (Gila River) and along the lower Colorado River north to the southwest edge of Utah. Considered rare in our area, these turtles can occasionally be seen in the pond at Rogers Spring at Lake Mead NRA.

Breeding: Digs nest in sandy banks and lay 1-2 clutches of up to 33 eggs in the spring and summer.

Similar Species: No other turtles in Nevada have flat, pancake-like shells.

Comments: The turtles at Corn Creek probably were introduced. These turtles bite.