# id my turtle please



## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

can anyone tell me what kind of turtle this is? my friend gave me this turtle a couple of weeks ago. he eats pellets made for turtles, in addition to a whole bunch of fish flakes and pellets. his shell is almost 6 inches long. can someone id him/her please? thanks


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

looks like a red ear slider to me


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## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

my friend told me that this turtle was found when it was a small baby near a pond like 6-7 years ago. it was somewhere in northern illinois. are there red ear sliders over there/


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2004)

khrislee said:


> my friend told me that this turtle was found when it was a small baby near a pond like 6-7 years ago. it was somewhere in northern illinois. are there red ear sliders over there/


 More likely it was purchased in a pet store or reptile show. Red eared sliders are very commonly sold as captive-bred babies.

I'm not sure that Red Ears live outside at the latitude of Nothern Illinois. I am in New Jersey and I have never seen one in the wild.


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## thePACK (Jan 3, 2003)

Trachemys scripta elegans-- red ear slider turtle


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## Innes (Jan 13, 2003)

lemmywinks said:


> looks like a red ear slider to me :nod:


 I agree


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

sure there are red ear sliders here in northern illinois. i was going to keep one as a pet once that i caught fishing for bluegills


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## CrocKeeper (Dec 26, 2003)

Red-Eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans)
Distribution: Range extends throughout the Mississippi Valley from Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico.

Habitat: Occupies most freshwater habitats within its range, but prefers quiet waters with soft bottoms, an abundance of aquatic plants, and suitable basking sites (Ernst and Barbour 1972).

Behavior: Red-eared sliders are typically active in every month in the southern part of their range, but farther north, they must hibernate in winter. They are not active until water temperatures reach 10 oC or higher. Below this temperature they hibernate in muskrat burrows or hollow stumps. Trachemys spp. are primarily diurnal. At night, turtles sleep by resting on the bottom or floating on the surface. Feeding activity is greatest in early morning but may occur throughout the day (Cagle 1950). A significant part of the daily activity cycle is basking, a well-developed practice even in hatchlings (Janzen et al. 1992). Basking, primarily for thermoregulation (Moll and Legler 1971), typically begins around 0800 and peaks between 1000 and 1100 hr in August and September. Basking activity shifts later in the day during October and November. Individuals may have extensive home ranges which may include several bodies of water between which they make frequent overland journeys (Cagle 1944). Little is known of the movements within a population. Trachemys spp. are occasionally known to be aggressive, particularly among melanistic males (Lovich et al. 1990). Aggressive behavior includes biting, shoving, and ramming other turtles of similar size and color.

Reproduction: Courtship behavior is traditionally thought to occur in spring and fall. Cagle (1950) observed that in Illinois, T. s. elegans mating activity peaks in May and September, but in Louisiana similar peaks occur in April and October, and in Kentucky, courtship lasts from March to early June (Ernst and Barbour 1972). The nesting season generally occurs between April and July, with May and June the most important months (Gibbons et al. 1982; Jackson 1988). Nests are excavated using the hind limbs in locations characterized as being open-unshaded areas where the soil is not muddy and usually less than 180 m from water to nest (Carr 1952). In areas with limited nest sites, levees, drainage ditches and railroad embankments are often sites of concentrated nesting. Nesting activity generally takes place in the early morning or late evening (Cagle 1937). As many as five clutches of 2 to 23 eggs (x = 6.1 eggs) may be deposited by an individual in a single year (Jackson 1988). Incubation time ranges from 60-80 days (Ewert 1979a). Eggs hatch in the late summer or early fall, although hatchlings in some populations overwinter in the nest, emerging the following spring (Gibbons and Nelson 1978). Gender determination is correlated with incubation temperature.

Food habits: The red-eared slider diet consists of a variety of plant and animal foods, to include algae (e.g. Cladophora), vascular plants (e. g. Azolla), sponges, snails, clams, crayfish, shrimp, spiders, adult and larval insects (e.g. mayflies, dragonflies), frogs (eggs, tadpoles, and adults) and snakes (Ernst and Barbour 1972; Hart 1983; Parmenter and Avery 1990). Juveniles studied in Louisiana predominantly feed on insects (mostly hemipteran and dragonfly nymphs), but shift gradually to plants (mostly waterweeds and duckweed) with increasing plastron length (Hart 1983).

Populations: In most well-studied populations, males outnumber females, primarily as a result of males maturing earlier than females. Maximum longevity in natural populations is about 30 years. Gibbons and Semlitsch (1981) reported a constant rate of mortality for all ages. Overall Trachemys spp. account for 71-87 percent of the total population in southern Illinois and Louisiana (Cagle 1950). Environmental contamination, such as pesticide poisoning (Hall 1980) and exportation resulting from the pet trade industry, has impacted populations in some areas (Warwick et al. 1990).


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

that thing never said they eat fish.... one time me and my cousin were fishing at this pond where we caught like 200 bluegills and about every 1/5 would swallow the hook too deep so we ripped it out and the bluegill died and floated up to the top. before we knew it we had about 20 dead bluegills floatin and about 10ish red ear sliders chowin down on them


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

lemmywinks said:


> that thing never said they eat fish.... one time me and my cousin were fishing at this pond where we caught like 200 bluegills and about every 1/5 would swallow the hook too deep so we ripped it out and the bluegill died and floated up to the top. before we knew it we had about 20 dead bluegills floatin and about 10ish red ear sliders chowin down on them :laugh:


 I think the list was already long enough, they eat lots of things. One of the few turtles we have that is really not in danger of going extinct. Rather, they are constantly causing trouble by reintroductions across the country and outside the country. Once again, don't release your turtle EVEN if there are red-eared sliders already there. You may be introducing disease, parasites, bad genes, etc.


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

By the way, that's a really neat pic!


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

thats asweet pic of that red ear slider


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## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

haha thanks...i have a video of it tearing a goldfish apart...if someone could tell me how to upload it on here, that would be awesome....


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

khrislee said:


> haha thanks...i have a video of it tearing a goldfish apart...if someone could tell me how to upload it on here, that would be awesome....


 You need to host it on a site and then make a thread directing the members to the link.


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## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

heres a pic


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## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

and another


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## CrocKeeper (Dec 26, 2003)

Goldfish = HORRIBLE FOOD ITEM

try obtaining bait minnows or ordering crickets or zoophobas, and dig up some earthworms....









looks like a young male from the last pic...


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## acestro (Jul 7, 2003)

There's a food called "turtle brittle" which I never got but friends
of mine who've kept turtles swear by it...


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## khrislee (Apr 26, 2004)

would rosy reds be better than goldfish? i just keep the turtle in a tank full of rosy reds, few goldfish, and 1 exodon


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## lemmywinks (Jan 25, 2004)

rosys are basicly monnows. they are better than goldfish







earth worms and crickets are a much better food for it


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## con man (Mar 7, 2004)

red ear slider aka painted turtle beautifull easy to attain from the wild awesome turtle put a small plank in there for him to back in put some lettuce on it also

he/she will love u


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

CrocKeeper said:


> Goldfish = HORRIBLE FOOD ITEM
> 
> try obtaining bait minnows or ordering crickets or zoophobas, and dig up some earthworms....:nod:
> 
> looks like a young male from the last pic...


 how can u tell thats its a male

and sweet pics
and remember there are alot better food out there than feeders


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## CrocKeeper (Dec 26, 2003)

> red ear slider aka painted turtle beautifull easy to attain from the wild awesome turtle put a small plank in there for him to back in put some lettuce on it also


Painted turtle is a completely seperate species and different turtle than the red-eared slider...do your homework.

Yes easy to obtain from the wild, but why when they are easy to obtain captively produced?


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