Hydromedusa tectiferaCope, 1870

South-American Snake-headed Turtle

Photograph by Mauro Fossati, CC BY, via iNaturalist

A water-living, nocturnal, meat-eating turtle from the Neotropic region, reaching 300 mm nose to tail.

Reptilia › Testudines › Chelidae › Hydromedusa

Grows to: 300mm; greatest recorded
Eats: Carnivorous
Active: Nocturnal
Lives up to: 12.4years

Body length across Chelidae

Longer than 64% of all species in Chelidae anyone has measured.

64% of 42 species are smaller36% larger

155 mmthe whole family, smallest to largest500 mm

The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 155 to 500 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.

What is known

24 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.

Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.

The animal itself

Colour on the back: Black
Pattern on the back: Uniform
Pupil: Round
Venomous: No
Fangs: None
Longest recorded life: 12.4years

Size

Length nose to tail · greatest recorded: 300mm12 in
Largest juvenile · shell length: 34mm1.25 in
Body mass · greatestcomputed: 3016g6.6 lb

How it lives

Diet: Carnivorous
How it hunts: Active foraging
Active: Nocturnal
Where it lives: Aquatic
Habitat: Wetlands
Region: Neotropic
Highest it lives · above sea level: 10m

Breeding

Reproduction: Oviparous
Average clutch: 4eggs
Egg length: 34mm1.25 in
Egg width: 22mm0.9 in

Naming and history

Subspecies: No
Described by: Cope
Moved to another genus · since it was first described: No
Described in: 1870

Keeping one

No enclosure size is given here

The standard sets enclosure size for turtles and tortoises genus by genus, and this genus is not among the roughly sixty it lists. No figure is given rather than one borrowed from a different animal.

No preferred body temperature has been recorded for South-American Snake-headed Turtle. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.

Feeding

A prey item should be no wider than the space between the animal's eyes.

Widely used across reptile husbandry references. The stated reason is that the gap approximates the width of the throat, so wider prey is associated with impaction. This is established practice, not a measurement.

243kJ per day

Worked out for an animal of 3,016 g, the heaviest recorded for South-American Snake-headed Turtle — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.

An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.

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
— 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
— Body mass · a typical adult
— Body mass · adult female, mean
— Body mass at hatching
— Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
— Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
— Eats arthropods
— Eats vertebrates
— Eats plant matter
— How the young develop
— Gestation or incubation
— Smallest clutch recorded
— Largest clutch recorded
— Mean clutch · smallest reported
— Mean clutch · largest reported
— Clutches in a year
— 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
— Sex decided by
— Conservation status
— 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
— Active in
— Mainland or island
— Lowest it lives · above sea level
— Range size

Others in Chelidae

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). Hydromedusa tectifera. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydromedusa-tectifera

@misc{hydromedusa_tectifera_2026,
  title  = {Hydromedusa tectifera},
  author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/hydromedusa-tectifera}
}

Sources

Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
Moura, M. R. et al. TetrapodTraits: a database of 33,281 tetrapod species. Used under CC BY 4.0. Observed values only; this encyclopedia does not publish its imputed predictions.