92 
TORTOISES AND TURTLES. 
by mistaking the appendages on the neck for plants or animals on which they feed. 
The matamata is, however, stated to capture some of its prey by swimming swiftly 
among water-plants, diving immediately that a fish or frog is seized in its beak. 
In captivity this tortoise is sluggish, frequently dying after a few weeks through 
refusal to feed. 
Snake-Necked The snake-necked tortoises, of which there are two South American 
Tortoises, species (Hydromedusa maximiliani and tectifera), agree with the 
matamata in their long necks and weak jaws, but differ in their smooth shell, the 
absence of a proboscis to the nose, and the presence of only four claws on each 
SNAKE-NECKED TORTOISE nat. size). 
foot—the matamata having five claws on the fore-feet and four on the hinder pair. 
The flattened shell in the young state has an interrupted median ridge, and presents 
the unique peculiarity that the broad nuchal shield of the carapace is placed behind 
the first pair of marginals (which consequently meet in the middle line), and thus 
simulates a sixth vertebral shield. The figured species ( H. tectifera), which ranges 
from Southern Brazil to Buenos Aires, has a shell measuring about 8 inches in 
length, and its feet largely webbed. In colour, the carapace is dark brown and the 
plastron yellowish, with brown spots in the young; the head and neck being olive, 
with a curved white streak on each side of the throat, and a broader white band, 
edged with black, running along the sides of head and neck. 
