General Care Discussion :: Mystery Turtle

[cappy]

Please help.
Rescued this turtle because owner was going to "get rid of it" since it regularly did "walkabouts" from it's outdoor enclosure. Please ID so that I can properly care for it. It is 8.25 inches long and about 6 inches wide. It looks a bit like a big old red eared slider without noticeable red ears. I am new here and a turtle newbee (save that I had a couple of beloved turtles in my youth)

[Tampa Bay Turtle Fan]

Kinda hard to tell at this point but please take a few photos of it when he is active or out of his shell a bit focusing on close ups on angles of the striping on its head as well as the back end striping. Just ad it in additions to the above photos if you will please. Welcome to the turtle talk forums as well.

[cappy]

Sorry, couldn't get the new photos to post above. Here they are below. Bugger won't pull her legs out if i am anywhere in sight

[Tampa Bay Turtle Fan]

I am leaning towards a very old wild caught yellow belly slider like the one below but yours seems older. How long is its shell I am adding a photo of one similar that you can help us compare it to. It is puzzling me a bit. The length of the shell may help up identify it as some species do not get as large as others. Very interesting and I like brain teasers lol. You have my mind going now and I wont be able to sleep till I feel comfortable searching a bit more to try to help lol

[cappy]

8.25 inches long and 6 inches wide. I bet you are right as I can barely discern the yellow "swoosh" behind the eye. It's not yellow on mine but faint silvery

[steve]

Melanistic cooter perhaps?

[Tampa Bay Turtle Fan]

Melanistic cooter perhaps?

Melanistic cooter is a great possibility but then I would feel that on the back side photo near the tail would be dark as well. Am I wrong here Steve? Its striping back there displays to be normal. I am not sure totally due to this but yet the head and and all does appear melanistic but the back area does not, so kinda confused.

[cappy]

So, We live at about 5000 feet in Southern California (it snows here). Would an outdoor unheated pond (mud bottom) be an appropriate habitat or too cold?

[Tampa Bay Turtle Fan]

All reptiles need some heat source natural or artificial , some can take a bit of cold more than others but personally I have not seen native species to North America take the cold well at all. A lot will die off especially in snow bound areas for sure. Water turtles in some of the colder areas, some will use beaver huts and some will try to escape underground. Many do die, some live. It is kinda like mother natures way of controlling things. Many reptiles also get sick with respiratory conditions as well from the cold .

When I say some reptiles can take it more than others, take for instance Argentina Boa Constrictors, black head pythons and even womas. Their bodies in general as a example have adapted to very cold mountain conditions. These are all non native and not many people back a long time ago could not successfully breed them who never studied their natural climates that has proven now over the years to of been the key to breeding them. Theses species for a very successful breeding season and not a once in awhile breeding season is to drop their temperatures down to the 40's degrees up to 50 max with no heat source during a 30 to 60 day cycle prior to raising the temps slowly back to normal before introduction and copulation occurs. Colombian boas which are not true red tails but sold as red tails, and the three true red tails, Peruvian, Suriname and Guyana Red Tails, will have the temperatures dropped to 70 degrees with no heat prior to breeding season for the same 30 to sixty days. Anything under this can give the medical situations that a breeder or reptile owner can face financially with issues stemming from this in vet bills. If you combine the same cycles of these snakes for instance, it is a guarantee that some will die and others will live, and some will be sick.

Sorry for the long explanations, I however tend to use examples in everything so people can relate and understand reasoning on why. I feel it is better for a person to know the reasoning then to get advised something and not know the reasoning behind it. This tends to stick in someones mind long term. Being that this is a native species, I would not recommend a unheated pond if you can avoid it. Even though I am in Florida, we get the cold snaps during the winter like we did recently. My outside turtles come inside before these snaps get here for sure.

[cappy]

Sounds like it is not really responsible to put this fella in our farm pond. It would be a dream life for the summer with the fish fry in the warmer shallows in the summer but not so good the rest of the year. Back to the drawing board. Folks before us had the turtle outside in low elevation Southern California for about five months. Got a respiratory infection in the winter but was treated with drugs and recovered (it got warmer too). They got it from a pet store who probably got it from somebody that had it for a really long time ...maybe death in family or move to a nursing home. Just guessing. Seems well taken care of for most of its life

[the-turtle-Girl]

I'm leaning towards a very old YBS look at the markings on the plastron . The tell tale spots of a YBS and the markings on the skin and you can kind of see the yellow behind the eyes . I'm pretty sure it's an old YBS lol

[the-turtle-Girl]

The spots are at the beginning of the plastron . Seen in one of the first pics posted

[mythicalpet]

YBS or some kind of Cooter possibly? Hermes looks like that except he has a red belly and more yellow on the skin. He's a red-bellied cooter.