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What’s for dinner? How sex and size affect the diet of Trionyx triunguis across Africa

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: ow species interact with their environments is critical to ensuring proper conservation action. Interactions come in many forms, but one of the most basic and least studied for tropical freshwater chelonians seems to be their diet, a proxy for determining generalist versus specialist species. Even less represented in the scientific literature on chelonians are studies of intraspecific variation in diet, specifically dietary differences between the sexes and ontogenetic shifts in diet for large-bodied species. Herein, we investigate the diets of male, female and juvenile (< 25 cm SLC) Trionyx triunguis in both their east and west African range to evaluate differences and measure their dietary generalism. We found ontogenetic and location-based dietary differences. Keywords: geographical comparison, omnivory, ontogeny, softshell, turtles

Source: Herpetological Bulletin

DOI: 10.33256/35.4.260265

Authors: Pearson McGovern, Edem Eniang, Stephanie N. Ajong, Gift Simon Demaya, Mathias Behangana, Sery Gonedele-Bi, Fabio Petrozzi, Godfrey C. Akani, Julia E. Fa, Luca Luiselli

Language: English

Topic: Turtle Biology and Conservation

Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

OpenAlex ID: W4414759560

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