A spiny turtle at Taipei Zoo has produced offspring after three years of breeding efforts by conservationists, the zoo said on Friday.
The zoo has four of the endangered turtles — two females and two males — and one of the females had laid several eggs over the past three years, but none of them had hatched before, the zoo said.
However, on Aug. 20 a hatchling emerged from its egg following about 100 days of incubation, measuring 5cm and weighing 20g.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Zoo
When a spiny turtle’s shell grows and hardens it resembles the sun with rays of light spreading out from the shell’s edges, which is why the reptile is named “sun turtle” (太陽龜) in Chinese, the zoo said.
As the turtle ages, it loses the spiky edges on its shell, and more closely resembles a common box turtle, the zoo said.
Spiny turtles tend to be shy and freeze in place if there is movement nearby, so even at the zoo, the turtles wait until keepers have left their enclosure before venturing out for their food.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
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