What are the characteristics of the soft-shelled turtle's living habits?

When you mention the soft-shelled turtle, surely many people are familiar with it; it is not only highly nutritious but has also become a delicious dish on the dining table. However, because of its high price and good market demand, many people specially raise some, and to raise soft-shelled turtles well, you must first understand their living habits, so what are the habits of the soft-shelled turtle?

1. The soft-shelled turtle is an amphibious reptile that inhabits the bottom of the water. It mainly lives in water and only crawls ashore during the egg-laying period and when foraging in summer. It breathes with its lungs and exhales through its nostrils. Most are wild and widely distributed; from south to north, its traces can be found in rivers, streams, ponds and reservoirs. In recent years, in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area of the south, there are quite a few specialized households raising soft-shelled turtles artificially. It likes to live in waters with sandy beaches or hillsides along the shore.

2. The soft-shelled turtle mainly feeds on animal-based bait. It has no teeth, but it has a very hard dental plate that can crush all kinds of food. Small fish, small shrimp, insects, frogs, mussel meat, snail meat, grasshoppers, earthworms and animal internal organs are all its delicacies; sometimes it also eats plant seeds, and it also preys on insects, grasshoppers, small frogs, earthworms and so on.

3. Every year at the end of spring and beginning of summer, the soft-shelled turtle crawls onto the shore to make a nest in the sand and soil to lay eggs, covers the eggs with soil, and often hides nearby to peek. The soft-shelled turtle is frequently active in June and July. On calm days it often floats to the surface to bask in the sun, and in the dead of night it crawls onto the shore to cool off. Its appetite is strongest in the 3 months of July, August and September. It is especially greedy and very easy to catch. After October it hides in the deep bottom layer of the water to prepare for hibernation, until March of the following year.

4. The soft-shelled turtle likes clean waters, likes living water, likes sandy and muddy bottoms, likes quiet, and likes leeward and sunny spots. It fears disturbance, fears cold, and fears strong wind. Its visual, auditory and olfactory organs are all very sensitive, and it is especially sensitive to the fishy smell of animal internal organs. It also has the ability to judge the direction of escape.

5. The soft-shelled turtle is a cold-blooded animal, and its feeding is closely related to water temperature. When the water temperature is 20~32 degrees Celsius, its food intake is large; below 20 degrees Celsius, its food intake decreases; below 15 degrees Celsius, it does not eat. When the water temperature exceeds 33 degrees Celsius in summer, its appetite decreases; during the day it hides at the bottom of the water or in shady places to escape the heat, and at night it comes ashore to look for food; in winter it dives to the bottom of the water, neither eating nor moving, and enters hibernation, until the hibernation period ends in March of the following year. The two seasons of summer and autumn each year are the golden season for catching soft-shelled turtles.

6. The soft-shelled turtle has weak reproductive capacity and grows slowly. A one-winter-old soft-shelled turtle is only 7~8 cm in diameter, a two-winter-old one is 9~12 cm in diameter, and a three-winter-old one can reach 13~15 cm in diameter. Soft-shelled turtles in rivers can reach a maximum body weight of 10 kg. The soft-shelled turtle has a very long lifespan; there is a kind of sea turtle that can live more than a hundred years.

7. The soft-shelled turtle's vision and hearing are extremely sensitive, so when fishing for soft-shelled turtles you must keep quiet. Some people also say that its vision is strong and its hearing is weak, and that once it sees a suspicious human shape it immediately hides at the bottom of the water. In fact, the soft-shelled turtle is timid and highly alert; no matter what movement occurs, it will become alert and hide at the bottom of the water, not daring to feed. Therefore, when fishing for soft-shelled turtles you must keep quiet and avoid swaying shadows; it is best to hide within a natural barrier, such as in bushes, behind large trees, or in tall reeds, to fish. Some people, when there is no natural barrier, set up a shelter with green plastic sheeting, dig a small hole, and hide behind it to observe the float's movement, so as not to disturb the soft-shelled turtle.

Overall, the soft-shelled turtle is both an amphibious reptile and a cold-blooded animal. It likes to eat animal-based bait such as small fish and small shrimp. Although it grows slowly, it has a long lifespan, so many people even specially keep it as a pet.