It’s Photo Hunt time, peeps and this week’s theme is SMELLY.

I couldn’t think of a “smelly” picture when I dropped by TNChick’s site to check the theme for this week, but when I got to bed at night, an idea came to me. Just like that *snaps fingers* And knowing that I would have something to share with you guys, I went to bed a happy girl :)

Now, the following picture shows a river terrapin hatchling which was found dead in its shell. Well, carcasses are usually smelly, aren’t they?!

River terrapin eggs are oblong in shape, and once laid, the eggs would need to be incubated for about 60-80 days. During the incubation period, the fertilized egg would gradually form an embryo, then a fetus before the hatchling comes out of its shell. The egg yolk provides most of the needed nutrients during the developmental stages.

But how did a fetus die in the shell?

From a few hours after the egg is laid until the last trimester, the embryo will start to form. During this stage, it is very important to cease handling the egg because any “wrong” movement will result in the egg yolk suffocating the developing embryo. Which was possibly why this particular hatchling did not make it.

So when we excavated the styrofoam boxes in which the eggs were incubated, we found some dead terrapins that that did not hatch successfully. And my, these rotten eggs were very smelly, and it was only a matter of a few minutes before the flies started to feast on them!

More more posts on the river terrapins:

• An introduction to a rare species of river terrapin
• What does empty terrapin egg shells look like?
• How to differentiate between a river terrapin and a painted terrapin