Pig-nosed softshell turtles are funny-looking fellows. 

They are water-dwelling turtles of the  lakes, and lagoons of Southern New Guinea and Northern Australia. The Pig-nosed softshell turtle is  a soft-bodied reptile and with a soft, rubbery outer-shell.  Like all turtles, who have shells the top section of the shell is called the carapace and the bottom part is called the plastron.  

Gray and olive coloured, the pig-nosed softshell turtle  has grayish-brown carapace  and white or yellowish-cream plastrons.

The overall shell is smooth and like a pancake, flat. The legs of pig-nosed softshell turtles are particularly designed for underwater swimming. Their feet are paddle-shaped and like a duck, are webbed. Pig-nosed softshell turtles can grow to be at around 22 inches  long.

It is obvious to anyone who sees one that they are called pig-nosed for their pig-like snout. Pig-nosed softshell turtles respirate through their lungs when they are on land, but strangely through their skin when they are in the water.

• Like other reptiles, pig-nosed softshell turtles are cold-blooded.   
• Pig-nosed softshell turtles are omnivorous, and will eat a huge variety of things including: crustaceans, insects, mollusks, fish, aquatic plants, and even the fruits of some riverside trees.
  
• When pig-nosed softshell turtles are  underwater eating their foods, they use the gape and suck method. This means they open their mouths and expand their throats. Doing this causes a rush of water and food to be sucked into their mouths allowing them to  eat the food and push the water back out.

These reptiles are, compared to other turtles, excellent underwater swimmers which has led to their swimming ability described as aquatic flying, or underwater flying.

Their smooth shells and ducklike feet help them glide gracefully through the water. As they swim they paddle through the water thusly:

• moving their right forelimb and left hindlimb and then
  
• moving their left forelimb and right hindlimb.
  

This pattern aids them in two ways. It helps propel them through the water and simultaneously it keeps them moving in a straight direction. (This system is very similar to the way canoes are paddled through water.)

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 Pig-nosed softshell turtles mating season lasts from September through November in New Guinea. Even though  the turtles mate in water, the females climb out of the water to lay their eggs on land. To do this they dig shallow holes, in the dry, sunny banks along the sides of the water where the Pig-nosed softshell turtle will  lay 15 to 20 eggs in each hole. (A hole or clutch is a batch of eggs laid together.)

Pig-nosed softshell turtles most likely lay more than one clutch of eggs each mating season. These turtles lay round eggs which are only about 1 1/2 inches   wide because it is more efficient for a  large numbers of eggs of this shape to be packed together in a small space.

Once the eggs are laid the female pig-nosed goes back into the water and has no relationship with her young as is usual for all turtles.    

Pig-nosed softshells  survive  from predators by hiding on the bottom of the water where their very smooth, flat bodies blend  with the mud and sand, making them almost invisible. Pig-nosed softshell turtles may also defend themselves by drawing in their limbs. 

Like a number of turtles and tortoises, the pig-nosed softshell lives for a very long period of time--possibly up to one-hundred years.