Meet Vietnam's "bizarre" big-headed turtle
With a bafflingly oversized head and a long, dangling tail, this may well be one of the ugliest animals living in Vietnam.
This bizarre creature is the big-headed turtle, known to science as Platysternon megacephalum. In Vietnam, it is found in the mountains of the north, parts of the central region and the Tây Nguyên (Central Highlands).
True to its name, the turtle's most distinctive feature is its oversized head, strangely out of proportion with its small, flat shell, which means it cannot pull its head inside the shell the way its relatives can. Other "one-of-a-kind" traits include a hooked, parrot-like beak and a long, lizard-like tail that is as long as its body.
Because of shrinking habitat and hunting to supply the traditional medicine trade, big-headed turtle numbers in Vietnam have fallen sharply. The species is ranked in category R (rare in the wild) in Vietnam's Red Data Book.
Although the turtle is increasingly rare and the law strictly bans hunting, buying, selling, trading or keeping big-headed turtles without a permit, many turtle enthusiasts in Vietnam still go to great lengths to obtain this rare species on the black market. Sometimes they are even advertised online for as much as 500,000 VND for an animal weighing about 100 grams. Hunting, trading or consuming this protected species is illegal and can lead to criminal prosecution.
Because it needs the particular conditions of high mountain habitats, the big-headed turtle is especially hard to keep in captivity. As a result, efforts to conserve and breed the species at the Turtle Conservation Center in Cúc Phương National Park in northern Vietnam have faced many difficulties. In the hands of "illegal" turtle keepers, big-headed turtles rarely survive more than six months.
