General Description: Texas Softshells (Apalone spinifera emoryi) are light colored water turtles with a long, pig-like snout and a flat, leathery shell. They have been described as pancakes with pig-snouts.

Taxonomy: Softshell Turtles (Trionychidae). Formerly Trionyx spinifera; Apalone spiniferus.

Technical Description: Shell size to 18 inches. Shell extremely flat (like a pair of pancakes), flexible, and leathery (not hard as is typical of most turtles). Neck long and flexible. Nostrils at the end of a long, pig-like snout. Feet webbed to form large, broad paddles.

Diet: A lie-in-wait, ambush hunter, these turtles hide in the mud at the bottom of a pond and prey on passing crayfish, aquatic insects, worms, tadpoles, and aquarium fish.

Habitat: Slow moving water in rivers and ponds.

Range: Softshells are basically eastern turtles, but this species ranges along the US-Mexico border in Texas and New Mexico, with disjunct populations in south-central Arizona (Gila River) and along the lower Colorado River north to the southwest edge of Utah. Considered rare in our area, these turtles can occasionally be seen in the pond at Rogers Spring and Las Vegas Bay (both in Lake Mead NRA) and in the Las Vegas Wash in the Las Vegas Valley.

Breeding: Digs nest in sandy banks and lays 1-2 clutches of up to 33 eggs each in the spring and summer.

Similar Species: No other turtles in Nevada have flat, pancake-like shells.

Comments: These turtles bite.