Taipei Zoo has welcomed seven newborn Roti Island snake-necked turtles so far this year, with another brood expected this month.
The zoo in 2018 partnered with Austria’s Turtle Island conservation center to acquire the critically endangered turtles native to Indonesia.
After producing two hatchlings last year, the turtles laid another clutch that began hatching on April 11.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Zoo
Seven hatchlings emerged weighing from 3.5g to 3.9g, about 20 percent heavier than the two hatched last year, showing that the mother turtles’ nutrient intake has improved, the zoo said.
The second clutch of 11 eggs is expected to hatch soon enough that zookeepers have set buckets of water in a hallway near the enclosure with insect larva, which are easier for young turtles to catch.
The carnivorous creatures typically eat small aquatic animals, but the zoo also feeds the adult turtles mouse pups, beef, chicken, fish, shrimp and other meat.
However, newly hatched turtles are picky and only eat live, moving creatures, although they are not yet skilled enough to catch small fish and shrimp, the zoo said.
Therefore, in addition to providing fruit flies and their larvae, zookeepers also harvest tadpoles of different species of tree frogs to give the hatchlings more variety.
However, their size — roughly equivalent to a NT$50 coin — belies their appetites, the zoo said, adding that the seven hatchlings, although only about two weeks old, can already consume nearly 100 tadpoles at a time.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS