Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:52 pm Taxonomy of the Trachemys
Sorry this was the only forum I felt would be appropriate for this topic. Steve, maybe this could start a new forum? So onto the topic at hand. I have been doing some off and on research of the taxonomy of the Rio Grande and have ran into some contraversy. With the confusion of the classification of the Trachemys species, I have been back and forth about what class the Rio Grande really falls under. First is it a subspecies of the common red ear slider? Second is it a Big Bend Slider? Or is it just a crossbreed of the two? Scientifically speaking, I'm not to sure anyone really knows what they are. When I google Rio Grande I get Trachemys Scripta Elegans( Common Red Ear Slider), which is in Texas and then also the Trachemys Gaigeae( Big Bend Slider), also in Texas. I'm curious, are these two species different from the Rio or are the Rio's a result of crossbreeding that would result in the Rio Grande Slider? I'm becoming more and more intrugued by the classification of these species, and the fact that there is alot of different ones in the Trachemys taxonomy. Is there any researchers on this forum that could put their two cents in this discussion? I would be excited to hear what you would have to say about the classifications of the Trachemys Taxonomy. I guess my biggest concern here is what do we really call our turtles?
