Males do not grow more than 155 mm in length and 550 g in weight. Females are smaller. The length of their carapace is not more than 135 mm, and their weight is 410 g. In young, the length of the carapace is 24–29 mm, their weight is in the range from 3.2 to 6.6 g [2]
The color of the marsh toad turtles depends on their age and habitat. Cubs usually have a gray top and a light cream with a black bottom. The color of adults varies depending on the conditions of the habitat: from yellow-brown in swamps with an excess of clay to almost black with a burgundy tint in water, the color of black coffee of swamps with an excess of sand. The color of the plastron varies from yellow to brown, and sometimes black; often there are black spots on a yellow background with black edges of the shell plates. The paws are short, covered with scaly plates and have well-developed claws. The short neck is covered with keratinized tubercles, and on the top of the head there is a large, separately located plate. False emidura is the smallest representative of serpentine turtles found in Australia .
The first specimen of a swamp toad turtle was caught by Ludwig Price in 1839 and sent to the Vienna Museum of Natural History . [3] There she was named New Holland. This name indicated that the turtle was caught in western Australia. And only much later, in 1901, the species was renamed Siebenrock into Pseudemydura umbrina. Under this name, he is known today. Until 1953, not a single new individual was recorded, and in the aforementioned year, two were discovered at once. Originally in 1954, they were described by Ludwig Glauert as representatives of the new species Emydura inspectata , but, as it turned out later, they were representatives of the species false emidura. This was proved by Ernest Williams in 1958. [2]
