Few reptiles can breathe underwater. Australia is home to one of the exceptions, the white-throated snapping turtle (Elseya albagula), which can extract oxygen from water through its backside via a process called cloacal respiration. This unusual technique, shared by a handful of other turtle and fish species, gave the turtles an evolutionary advantage for millennia, allowing them to hide from predators underwater for days at a time.

Unfortunately, breathing out of your butt requires very specific conditions that no longer exist in the turtles’ only habitat, Queensland’s Connors River and three nearby catchments. Dams, weirs, agriculture and mining have left the water sluggish and full of sediment. That makes it significantly harder for the turtles—especially vulnerable juveniles—to stay underwater. As a result, predation has increased to the point where populations have crashed. The problem has gotten so bad that less than 1 percent of eggs and young turtles survive to adulthood and the species has now been declared critically endangered by the Australian government