A visitor in the yard today PICS

William81

Headed out to work in the yard today and came across this fellow wondering about.....the weather has them moving around a lot.

KenK/84Bravo

Wonder how old he is?

I love Turtles.

Saw a large 1-1 1/2' diameter snapping turtle, run over in the road a day or two ago. Bummed me out.


I will always stop and get one out of the road.

Sam06

I saved one the other day on the road. I put him in PU and took him to my woods. I hope he has a good time back there.

I like Turtles too.

Ditch-Runner

not sure what it is about turtles . do not see many around here other than a few snappers and box turtle we rarely see any ,
traveling south on vacation thru the mountains . over the years wife and I have carried many on across the road or out of the roads ( I hope we put them on the side they wanted )

asop

Snappers (turtles) are great eating.

wpageabc

Its great to stop and help them out.

Shame to see them run down on the road.

Turtles are beautiful creatures.

remingtonoaks

He Dog

Pretty nice looking 3 toed box turtle. They have that orange color all the way to Okla. City, but I never saw it on the north/east side of the river.

nunn

I believe that one is a lady.

He Dog

I agree Nunn.

bs233jl

Great picture. I used to raise Box Turtles. Grand kids loved to play and feed them.

Sam06

When I was a Ranger Instructor at Camp Merrill, I went fishing at Lake Lanier in GA. I caught a big Snapping turtle maybe 50#. I was a little drunk and I brought it to the NCO club and set it down on the floor. This thing was so PO'ed everyone jumped on tables to get away from it

I bought him beers all night long and everyone who came in was running from him.

People finally got tired of him and I took him to the creek and let him go.

He hung around for a year or so.

Funny as hell, you could toss him a coors light and he would bust the can.


Fun times back in the early 90's

AdamsQuailHunter

The box turtles and gopher tortoises in north central Florida like to dine on the yellow wood sorrel - Oxalis stricta - like that in the first photo.

Best Regards - AQH

He Dog

Barzillia wrote:

I think you can count the rings on the carapace for age.

Sort of. You count the annuli on the second costal scute, the second large one on the side of the carapace. BUT, there can be seasonal rings and when they are older the rings are somewhat obscured, so on most adults the age is undeterminable. We have animals that were adult when they came here in 1990, meaning the females were more than 12 at the time. But the annuli can no longer be observed.

montanajoe

we had several box turtles as pets,when I was a kid. They kept down the bugs in the basement.

He Dog

montanajoe wrote:

we had several box turtles as pets,when I was a kid. They kept down the bugs in the basement.

until they died from lack of sunlight, improper temperature and inadequate diet. Yours may have been better cared for, but that is the fate of most basement pet turtles.

chiefr

nunn wrote:

I believe that one is a lady.

I believe the indented area on the plastron is a far more reliable way to determine the sex rather than eye color and bright coloring on front legs and head.

nunn

Actually, to be sure, one would turn the turtle upside down and examine the tail.

I was judging the sex more by the size of the carapace relative to the head, and the rather dainty front legs. All the really big 3-toeds I've seen have been femaie. I actually found one in Oklahoma that was larger than the record size recorded in Conant's book.

But, if He Dog agrees with me, that's good. He knows his business.

Henry0Reilly

We stopped to help what looked like a water dweller cross a busy road on Sunday. Wasn't sure if it was a snapper so I pushed it along with a stick rather than take a chance.

He Dog

chiefr wrote:

nunn wrote:

I believe that one is a lady.

I believe the indented area on the plastron is a far more reliable way to determine the sex rather than eye color and bright coloring on front legs and head.

Cheifr, sorry to be pedantic, but... The indentation is there, but can be somewhat subjective. The very best indicator is the length of the tail and position of the cloaca relative to the tail tip. Males have longer, thicker tails than females. They usually have red eyes when sexually mature, but not always as you indicate. They tend to have more colorful scales on the front legs, but again not always. I think the trait that Nunn and I keyed on was the morphology of the carapace. Females tend to have a rounder more robust carapace than males. The difference is hard to describe, but when you have looked at a few hundred, you spot it pretty reliably 90% of the time. With juveniles, all bets are off, though I have been watching the growth and development of a number of (western) box turtles for the past 30 years, we have one male, whose full name is 'Prince, the turtle formerly known as Sheila.' :oops:

hillbille

He Dog wrote:

chiefr wrote:

nunn wrote:

I believe that one is a lady.

I believe the indented area on the plastron is a far more reliable way to determine the sex rather than eye color and bright coloring on front legs and head.

Cheifr, sorry to be pedantic, but... The indentation is there, but can be somewhat subjective. The very best indicator is the length of the tail and position of the cloaca relative to the tail tip. Males have longer, thicker tails than females. They usually have red eyes when sexually mature, but not always as you indicate. They tend to have more colorful scales on the front legs, but again not always. I think the trait that Nunn and I keyed on was the morphology of the carapace. Females tend to have a rounder more robust carapace than males. The difference is hard to describe, but when you have looked at a few hundred, you spot it pretty reliably 90% of the time. With juveniles, all bets are off, though I have been watching the growth and development of a number of (western) box turtles for the past 30 years, we have one male, whose full name is 'Prince, the turtle formerly known as Sheila.' :oops:

allways figured it would be easier to just rub em on the butt and ask if they want to have sex, if they have a headache they are female.............

He Dog

Hillbille, I sent a copy of your post to your wife. Enjoy the couch. :twisted:

chiefr

hillbille wrote:

He Dog wrote:

chiefr wrote:

I believe the indented area on the plastron is a far more reliable way to determine the sex rather than eye color and bright coloring on front legs and head.

Cheifr, sorry to be pedantic, but... The indentation is there, but can be somewhat subjective. The very best indicator is the length of the tail and position of the cloaca relative to the tail tip. Males have longer, thicker tails than females. They usually have red eyes when sexually mature, but not always as you indicate. They tend to have more colorful scales on the front legs, but again not always. I think the trait that Nunn and I keyed on was the morphology of the carapace. Females tend to have a rounder more robust carapace than males. The difference is hard to describe, but when you have looked at a few hundred, you spot it pretty reliably 90% of the time. With juveniles, all bets are off, though I have been watching the growth and development of a number of (western) box turtles for the past 30 years, we have one male, whose full name is 'Prince, the turtle formerly known as Sheila.' :oops:

allways figured it would be easier to just rub em on the butt and ask if they want to have sex, if they have a headache they are female.............

chiefr

He Dog wrote:

chiefr wrote:

nunn wrote:

I believe that one is a lady.

I believe the indented area on the plastron is a far more reliable way to determine the sex rather than eye color and bright coloring on front legs and head.

Cheifr, sorry to be pedantic, but... The indentation is there, but can be somewhat subjective. The very best indicator is the length of the tail and position of the cloaca relative to the tail tip. Males have longer, thicker tails than females. They usually have red eyes when sexually mature, but not always as you indicate. They tend to have more colorful scales on the front legs, but again not always. I think the trait that Nunn and I keyed on was the morphology of the carapace. Females tend to have a rounder more robust carapace than males. The difference is hard to describe, but when you have looked at a few hundred, you spot it pretty reliably 90% of the time. With juveniles, all bets are off, though I have been watching the growth and development of a number of (western) box turtles for the past 30 years, we have one male, whose full name is 'Prince, the turtle formerly known as Sheila.' :oops:

Agree observation of the tail is the best, however many box turtles make it difficult to observe the tail when handled.
I have about 60 3 Toed box turtles which started as a road rescue I keep in a large pit in the back yard. Have had many of these particular turtles for over 15 years. Sure, I used to buy into eye color and head, leg coloring, but watching them mate, observations were contrary or a majority of terrepene carolina is happy. Mating has been successful as I often have plenty of offspring which I fatten up in a separate area and relocate.
Biggest problem I have is * and speckled king snakes going after eggs, Lampropeltis and even Agkistrodons, gets captured and relocated. * end up as buzzard bait.
Keep the turtles well fed with fruit, veggies, dog food, night crawlers and other stuff I can scrounge. In near 30 years of keeping hundreds, I have lost only 2 to unknown causes.
Have little experience with T- ornadas. Knowing Nunn over the years, he always seems to have some around. My experience is with the 3 toed which oh by the way some have 4.
If I could post pics I would do so.

He Dog

You got the toe count variation right, likely some carry genes of other Easterns with 4 toes. We have relocated something over 300 juvenile ornata over the past 6 years and are now building a turtle fence to separate males and females. Also slowly re-homing some of the adults. Because ornata are farm more carnivorous than carolina we feed about 15,000 giant meal worms a summer along with parrot pellets, fruit, salads and some occasional dog food. I chop cuttlebone and place it around for them to eat as a source of calcium. Our yard has a 7 foot block wall so they are well contained without building a pen, and no * here. We have lost a juvenile or few to cats and at least one to a road runner. All of ours obey the eye color rule, but I have seen brown eyed males and two red eyed females. Shell morphology is different with ornata, and adults are pretty easy to spot by shape.