He started life small like a Koopa Troopa but has grown to resemble Bowser’s stature in just six years.
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Tortle, a Murray River short-necked turtle — and not a referenced Super Mario Bros. character at all — fitted in the palm of his owner Michelle Sung’s hand when she bought the little guy in August 2018.
He was the second last turtle in the tank at Pets on Parade and fulfilled a long-time dream of Michelle’s to own a reptile.
“I just really love reptiles, they fascinate me,” the Shepparton mother of three said.
Michelle had considered a lizard as a pet and had even planned to get a puppy when she had just had her third daughter, Evelyn, but with another two daughters aged three and under, Elise and Emily, she decided it would be too much work.
Tortle is named after a toy Michelle’s husband, Quinton, owned as a child.
He couldn’t determine if it was a turtle or a tortoise, so its name was a fusion of the two.
Quinton didn’t mind what plans Michelle made for Tortle, so long as he got to name him.
Tortle first lived in a three-foot tank at the Sungs’ home where the little saucer-sized critter fed on bloodworms.
Males of the species are considerably smaller than females, and turtles in captivity often don’t grow as big as their wild counterparts, but Tortle thrived and bucked that trend.
According to the South Australian Department of Environment and Water, the shells of adult Murray short-necked turtles are generally around 30cm in length and males grow to weigh around 2.2kg; females over 4kg.
Tortle, at the age of six — which is still not considered an adult in turtle terms — already weighs 2.7kg with an asymmetrical shell measuring 31cm long and 25cm wide.
It wasn’t long before the Sungs had to upgrade to a bigger tank.
They thought they’d found a bargain in a $50-second-hand seven-footer, but ended up spending another 500 bucks to do it up.
“It also took three men to move it,” Michelle said.
“We always joke that we’re never moving house because of the tank.”
Michelle tries to replicate the habitat of the Murray River inside Tortle’s enclosure, with rocks, logs and plants placed under the constantly filtered fresh water.
There’s even a couple of neon tetra fish swimming around in there to really simulate the scene.
She said the water needed to be between 22 and 26 degrees to keep Tortle comfortable and healthy.
In the winter, she uses a heater to achieve that temperature; in the summer there’s no need.
Tortle has an above-water platform to bask on underneath a UV lamp should he feel the need to chase the ‘sun’.
Michelle said he would often spend a couple of hours there at a time and also used the heat source to dry out his scutes (plates) when he was shedding his shell to grow.
He also loves a good scratch on his shell — which is a part of his body, not just attached to it — with a toothbrush.
A dedicated pet owner, with two Siamese cats named Ingrid and Astrid as well, Michelle cleans Tortle’s tank every eight weeks.
The two-hour job entails changing the water, cleaning the rocks and plants and re-positioning them so they’re evenly spaced, despite Tortle pushing them all back into the middle of the tank when he gets his webbed footsies on them again.
“He’s very fussy, it’s like he’s saying, ‘I don’t like what you’ve done’,” Michelle said with a laugh.
Fussy, maybe. Delicate? Not so much.
“They’re actually very hardy animals,” Michelle said.
“I did a lot of research before getting him and it sounded like hard work, but it’s actually really easy.”
To survive (and clearly thrive), Tortle needs an amount of food the same size as his head each day.
He gets half a teaspoon of turtle pellets, plus a block of frozen food that includes a meat source of protein, spirulina, carrots and cucumber.
Occasionally he gets to snack on shrimp.
“They normally eat fresh fruit, cucumber, lettuce, apple, but Tortle leans more towards being a carnivore than an omnivore. He likes his meat,” Michelle said.
This growing boy enjoys his food so much that he’ll sometimes eat it twice.
Turtles digest so quickly that they can get a second dose of nutrients from the same meal by eating their own poo.
It’s possibly the kind of Neanderthal behaviour one would expect from a prehistoric-looking creature whose species dates back to the Jurassic period with not much evolution since.
Or is it just that the recipe was already right?
After all, turtles have the secret to longevity, living between 30 and 70 years.
“We joke that the kids are going to have to look after him,” Michelle said.
That might not be far from the truth.
But at least with Michelle’s future plans to build her beloved pet an outdoor habitat, the kids won’t have to worry about shifting seven-foot tanks and carrying out bi-monthly tank cleans.
Senior journalist