Other Turtle Discussion :: New Diamondback Terrapin :D

[Tertule]

Some great news from the Iac/Tertule camp. Last week we acquired a Diamondback Terrapin. The "medium" size guy/girl is so cute. We still haven't figured out a name for him/her yet. No pics yet either. He/she is so happy. Unlike an RES, the DBT when basking, runs up to us, and when he/she is swimming the terp will swim up to us. We'll keep youz guyz updated.

[marisa]

Congrats on the new addition. I find DBTs fascinating.

[iac637]

He/She is beautiful our others swim to the gass when we come in the room but they don't continue to bask when we walk in the room but this one will. He/She was right at home as soon as we put it in the tank. He/She was eating out of my hand the first night.

[marisa]

Way back when, I used to think they were kind of spooky looking. Now, I think they're elegant looking. In the wild in CT they were almost wiped out years ago because they were popular in the food trade (apparently they have tasty flesh). Recently, however, it's been noticed they're making a comeback.

[Tertule]

You should feel their skin, it's not like RES skin, it's soft and smooth. It looks much like human skin...minus the hair, plus white skin with black spots.

We did our homework. It seems like the more attractive a turtle is to the human eye, the "tastier" it is. I've got my eye on a Callagur Borneoensis. They are getting dangerously near being on the endangered species list.

What I don't get...from looking at turtle anatomy...where's the meat? Not that I would ever try anything outside of what you can get at the grocery store. I just don't see the point in making this concoction.

[iac637]

Yeah a lot of places aer coming close to not having DBT's anymore because of the food trade. I was talking to our local Herp man he said the problem is, they are making it illegal to sell them in some state and so the people who want them are getting them from the wild and that doesn't help the wild population any. He said they need to get a buncch together and make them a breeding group and then start selling and releasing in the wild to restore the balance because if people can readily get them then they won't need to get them from the wild.

I don't know why people would want to eat them in the first place like tertule said its the more attractive the turtle the tastier people think they are.

[DavidY]

pics please?

[octpusgirl8]

Wow sounds beautiful! Hurry up and post some pics!

[iac637]

we need to buy a new camera we have been using tertules phone but the pic quality isn't the best. I will try to post pictures before the end of the weekend.
I love the white skin with the black dots. very cool looking.

[DavidY]

Wow, I just looked one of these guys up on the net and they are gorgeous! Do you happen to know which subspecies you got? also where did you get him from? thanks!

[iac637]

We are pretty sure its a Carolinan Diamondback Terrapin. If you look at this site the second pic they show of the genus is what he looks like.

http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Creek/4046/


We got him from a local fish store that sells some turtles. The guys don't knwo a ton about turtles but have them in pretty good setups for a fish store and aren't afraid to ask if they don't know. When we were looking at the diamondback the owner brought out a musk that someone traded in and he wasn't sure what kind it was, so we told him and gave them so websites to look at they were very eager to know what to do and saved all the websites as their favorites to go and look more later. So that is always a good sign. We also bought 2 of our RES from them.

[DavidY]

What a cool looking turtle! That sounds like a pretty good pet store too. It's always good to learn new things.

I found this breeder on the web...http://www.geocities.com/diamondbackterrapins/. I could spend all day looking at his turtles.

[iac637]

there are some good breeders out there

empireoftheturtle.com
turtlepimp.com

are some of the ones we look at, to try and get ideas for later on

[iac637]

Yeah I have looked at this guys site before he has some pretty DBT's. I would love to breed turtles one day. I need to look up what I need to do legally in order to do so. As much as I love my RES though I don't want to breed them because there are already so many out there that need homes that I don't think I should be putting more out there. But our RES have a special Place in my heart because they are my first turtles and nothing will ever change that.

[iac637]

http://www.diamondbackterrapin.com/index2.html

this is about as close as you can get to a picture of his shell.