
Reptilia · Testudines
Chelus orinocensisVargas-Ramírez, Caballero, Morales-Betancourt, Lasso, Amaya, Martînez, Silva-Viana, Vogt, Pires-Farias, Hrbek, Campbell, Fritz, 2020
Orinoco matamatamata-mata do Orinoco
Photograph by Sheelagh Halsey, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A water-living turtle from the Neotropic region.
Reptilia › Testudines › Chelidae › Chelus
What is known
13 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
The animal itself
- Pupil
- Round
- Venomous
- No
- Fangs
- None
How it lives
- Where it lives
- Aquatic
- Region
- Neotropic
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, XX/XY
- Clutches in a year
- 1per year
Naming and history
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Vargas-Ramírez, Caballero, Morales-Betancourt, Lasso, Amaya, Martînez, Silva-Viana, Vogt, Pires-Farias, Hrbek, Campbell, Fritz
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 2020
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Still living
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Shell length, front to back · greatest recorded
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · greatest
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Body mass at hatching
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Diet
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — Active
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Smallest clutch recorded
- — Largest clutch recorded
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Limbs
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Suborder
- — Infraorder
- — Type locality
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Mainland or island
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
Others in Chelidae
- (Western) Twist-neck Turtle
- Amazon Mata Mata
- Arnhem Land Long-Necked turtle
- Bells’ Turtle
- Big-headed Pantanal Swamp Turtle
- Black Spine-necked Swamp Turtle
- Black-lined Toadhead Turtle
- Brasilianische Krötenkopfschildkröte
- Brazilian Radiolated Swamp Turtle
- Cann's Snake-necked Turtle
- Chaco Side-necked Turtle
- Common Snake-necked Turtle
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Chelus orinocensis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chelus-orinocensis
@misc{chelus_orinocensis_2026,
title = {Chelus orinocensis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/chelus-orinocensis}
}Sources
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.