Turtle identification made extremely difficult

Jasmine was barking like crazy at something in the middle of the back yard.



It was a turtle, laying eggs in a not-so-secluded spot.



I shooed the dog away, took a few pictures, and left her to it.



I went out later to try to find the egg site, but couldn't relocate it.

It finally did dawn on me later, that some previous mystery sites (small wet shallow holes) were places where turtles had recently laid eggs. Aha! I felt so smart. I mentioned this to my husband, and he said something along the lines of, "Of course, didn't you know that already?" Well, maybe I just forgot.

Anyway, this happened a few weeks ago. I found the turtle pictures again when moving some photos off the camera's disk. So I set out to identify the turtle.

I found a couple of good ID sites. One is the Turtle Field Guide. But it asked a lot of questions that I didn't have the answers to.

Then there's the Turtle Identification Guide and Checklist. I like that one better, because you don't have to know each answer before moving on to the next question. Plus, there are the drawings, and satisfying little check boxes.

But I'm still not sure which turtle this is. That would have required
1) Washing the turtle off, to try to make out the pattern on her back a bit better, and
2) Turning her over, to examine the pattern on the bottom.

Doing either of those things would fall into the "harassing wildlife" category though, I think.

I checked as many boxes as I could, but still came up with 11 possibilities. I think she may be a Florida Cooter, Pseudemys floridana. Or she could be a slider... Maybe a painted turtle. But I'm leaning towards Cooter.

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Submitted to the Friday Ark.

Recent visitors

Red phase American Toad, Bufo americanus, in the garden.


Please stay and eat some bugs.


A nice webpage that includes info on how to differentiate similar species by cranial ridge patterns.


Cool red dragonfly: Carolina Saddlebags, Tramea carolina. Thanks again Giff Beaton.


A turtle I haven't identified yet. But now I see why they call it a turtleneck.


She was in a hurry to get somewhere.


Unwelcome visitor. One of the neighbor's cows, again. Tremendous painintherearus.

How she got her name

Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)

Ms. Snappy was in search of a place to lay her eggs, when she was detained by a barking dog and a human with a blog.



The business end, a.k.a. how she got her name.



The other end. The gait reminds me of a toddler.

If you've got your sound turned on, you can hear an Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) in the background of both videos.

Sorry, we're closed

Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina).


Animal graffiti.

Strange weather

It's been cool again the last couple of days, but last week you'd have thought spring was well underway.

The honeybees (Apis mellifera) must have thought so too.

Except that when they were tricked into leaving the warm hive, there were no flowers. So they had to substitute... chicken feed?



I doubt that there's nectar in the layer ration pellets. But something must have attracted them. They seemed lethargic though. Torpid. I thought that the chickens, who in warmer months chase moths and flies all over the yard (to great comic effect), would make a quick meal of them. But they just ignored them.

Then out by the pond, I felt about as slow as the bees.



Why is the mud walking?



Finally it dawned on me that it was a snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina). Guess he realized it was too early to wake up.

Spiny softshell

It seems to be a turtle kind of a week.



A spiny softshell turtle was looking for a place to lay her eggs, but Jasmine spied her and had other ideas.

The latin name is Apalone spinifera, or The Turtle Formerly Known As Trionyx spiniferus.



Built-in snorkle!

It wasn't until later that I read that their jaws are razor sharp and can inflict a painful bite. In blissful ignorance I sat on the ground to get a turtle's eye view. Luckily I didn't get bitten.



Maybe she was too busy laughing at the muscovy who thinks he's my boyfriend.



The lumps on the shell mean she's a spiny instead of a smooth softshell.



I could see why they're called the pancake turtle. It's harder on the top, but around the sides the shell was pliable like leather.



Supersized! Males only reach about 9 inches, so this one is definitely a female. They're supposed to grow to 18 inches, so she must be pushing maximum poundage. I read that a large female can live 50 years!

I used the shovel to convince her she'd be better off in the ditch, away from the dog. She was much lighter than the snapping turtle I'd shoveled earlier in the month. Later in the day I saw her in the small pond.

It was a herp-filled day yesterday. We also saw a medium sized rat snake (that we relocated to the other side of the creek), a jillion baby frogs, and some small basking turtles.

While looking for info on the turtle, I also found a Checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of Alabama.

More info on the Spiny softshell is here, here, here, and here.

Turtle egg mystery

Near the pond, a critter unearthed and feasted on turtle eggs. The evidence was originally scattered several feet from the hole - I gathered a few of the shells back together for a picture.



Eggs in another nest nearby suffered a similar fate. I'm guessing that the culprit was a raccoon, skunk or opossum, but other turtle egg predators apparently include the fox, armadillo, mink, otter, and weasel.



I tried figuring out which species of turtle these eggs had belonged to, but didn't get very far. Here's where the (as yet to be invented) portable DNA analyzer would have come in so handy.

Several species can be ruled out since the eggs were spherical rather than elliptical, but other than that I couldn't find any key to turtle egg identification.

The eggs may have belonged to one of the two snapping turtles I saw recently, although they seem a bit small for that (not quite ping-pong ball size).



Undisturbed turtle nest.

In researching the turtle egg mystery, I came across an interesting story about a snapping turtle hatchling at the Hilton Pond site, where nest building is also discussed.

And found some more great snapping turtle pictures. (Eating a snake! Eating a fish!)

Even more good snapping turtle info.

Another snappy visitor

Last week Jasmine started barking like a crazy dog again. "There's an alien reptile here! Right here! Right here! Right here!"

This time I had to tie her up at a safe distance, since the turtle was jumping at her. Jumping and snapping. I've never seen a turtle move so fast.

If this is the standard for snapping turtle behavior, there really must have been something wrong with April's slow-moving visitor.

The new guy was a little smaller, decked out in about an inch of mud, and feeling very lively.

How to get a fiesty turtle out of a dog's range?

I'd heard stories of snappers grabbing a stick and holding on til sundown. He'd grab it all right, but would let go the moment I tried to lift him up. Didn't take too well to being herded with the stick either. (Got to see him jump at warp speed again though.) I eventually scooped him up with a long-handled shovel and relocated him to the other side of the fence. Heavy little sucker.


I found a site with pictures showing the difference between common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) and alligator snapping turtles (Macroclemys temmincki). They show our visitor to be the former.

More wildflowery

Yesterday I spent time with other wildflower nuts in the woods. We plucked a few where there were many, and rescued some from kudzu, Japanese honeysuckle, and men with bulldozers.



I came across this plant that I was not familiar with. I believe it may be a spider lily, Hymenocallis caroliniana.



Saw this guy. Eastern Box Turtle, Terrapene carolina.



Saw a couple of groundhog dens in the kudzu but didn't photograph them, as I was in danger of being left behind and it was too sunny anyway.

When we were done we appreciated Dan's beautiful garden.

OK we were just nosy.



Inside a foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) there are secret messages to bumblebees.



An unusual dogwood.



Sweet Williams (Dianthus).



Clematis.



Another Clematis. Most people around here seem to say it with the accent on the first syllable, but to me it sounds better on the second.

The visitor

Snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina).




The whole of it.




Jasmine really thought she should be involved.