# Kreffts or murray



## aussie1 (Jul 17, 2008)

Does anyone know a 100% certain way of differenciating a kreffts river turtle from a murray river turtle?


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## aussie1 (Jul 17, 2008)

??????


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## aussie1 (Jul 17, 2008)

anyone at all??


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## Kitah (Jul 17, 2008)

probably not the best way to distinguish them.. but from what ive seen, kreffts have more of a yellow/creamy coloured patch just caudal/behind the eyes, and it kind of "fades" into the olive colour of the skin.. whilst all of the murrays ive seen have a distinct, sharp edged cream/yellow line running from near the line of their mouth, but no yellow/cream behind the eye.

as i said, probably not the best way to distinguish them, i dont have that much experience with it.. I just know that I keep a kreffts boy and theres wild murrays in our dam 

quick pics of what i mean.. 

my kreffts boy






wild murray


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## aussie1 (Jul 17, 2008)

No probs i will post a photo when the bloody camera recharges.


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## aussie1 (Jul 18, 2008)

Any thoughts?


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## Kitah (Jul 18, 2008)

mhmm theres a couple that look very similar to that turt u just posted.. i assumed they were possible hybrids, but i really dont know. from the line at the mouth, i would have said murray.. but from the little bit of yellow behind the eye... i dont know if some murrays have that.

as i said.. prob not the best ID method.. hopefully one of the more knowledgeable turtle keepers can help you out!

edit: just as a note.. i am NOT implying this turtle is a hybrid.. just saying that i assumed the oddballs like this down the dam were. would like to here from the other keepers. pretty sure there are accurate identification methods with the carapace/plastron shape etc but i dont know them. sorry i could help


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## kakariki (Jul 18, 2008)

My guess? Murray shortneck.


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## aussie1 (Jul 18, 2008)

I have a few murrays at home and they all look the same as the image you posted of the wild one in the dam.

None have the marks behind the eyes.

I am pretty sure some baby murray's have the marks behind the eyes but they disapear as the turtle grows.

This turtle is no where near a baby so thats why im not sure.


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## aqua (Jul 18, 2008)

I would still say Murray, as they can have an isolated dot of white behind the eye more so than a streak of white leading from the eye like Krefft's do. Where is this turtle from? Krefft's tend to be from further north than Murrays don't they? Also how old is it? I think Murrays grow a lot quicker than Krefft's will, so if it's that size and only reasonably young that might also indicate it's a Murray.


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## aussie1 (Jul 18, 2008)

It was not much bigger than it is now when i got it 2 years ago.


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## hornet (Jul 18, 2008)

xshadowx said:


> probably not the best way to distinguish them.. but from what ive seen, kreffts have more of a yellow/creamy coloured patch just caudal/behind the eyes, and it kind of "fades" into the olive colour of the skin.. whilst all of the murrays ive seen have a distinct, sharp edged cream/yellow line running from near the line of their mouth, but no yellow/cream behind the eye.
> 
> as i said, probably not the best way to distinguish them, i dont have that much experience with it.. I just know that I keep a kreffts boy and theres wild murrays in our dam
> 
> ...



wild murrays in townsville?


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## -Peter (Jul 18, 2008)

You get a lot of cross species in captive shortnecks. When you realise that a large proportion of the species now descibed didnt exist taxanomically a few years back its not surprising. So you will get turtles that exhibit subtle inferences of multiple species and not everyone can tell the difference anyway as Hornet's last comment points out.


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## aussie1 (Jul 19, 2008)

Yeah well i have had him in a large tank with Murrays but it seems to have a different type of personality to them. 

I got it from a local pet shop a while back because he was closing down and it used to be the store mascot. 

So i got it for bugger all.

He said he had got it from interstate originally.

So its possible its one of these ??
Murray crossed with kreffts?
Murray 
Kreffts


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## aussie1 (Jul 19, 2008)

bump


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