Photo Gallery :: Elderly, melanistic RES

[reptilegrrl]

I thought y'all might be interested. This is a picture of a locally-found, melanistic RES:



Note that his red "ears" have become a dark olive color. They will probably continue to darken as he ages.

A local turtle lady found this turtle on the highway and could not figure out what it was. Because he had come out of a wetland that was being destroyed by construction, she took him home and put him in a rehab pond, as a temporary measure until she could release him in a safe location.

He escaped from her rehab pond and has made himself at home in her other ponds with her other turtles. He seems happy at this time, but she will probably return him to the wild if she can catch him. Her ponds are wild-type ponds built to wildlife department standards, for rehabbing turtles.

Anyway, she didn't know what he was, and so when she finally got a picture of him up, I saw that it was a melanistic RES! Some RES become very dark as they age. Anecdotally, I have heard that it is mostly males who do this, but I don't know if that has been researched. This guy is probably pretty old. She said he had algae 1/2 inch thick on his shell.

[sonyj]

I also have heard of RES males that are almost black in coloring when reaching maturity. At one time(a while ago), scientists thought they were a separate species until it was proven they were the same as the cute little green hatchlings with the red ears. Neat, huh? Kind of like us people, we come in all shades and colors and so do our turtles.

[Pokey's Grandpa]

It may be frowned upon but as a kid and even as a teenager I spent alot of time capturing wild turtles, some to keep as pets but mostly to catch and release and later, as I got older, to move the turtles to a safer area and ensure their breeding and survival.

The biggest turtle I ever caught was dubbed Big Bertha, she was an RES and she was INCREDIBLY HUGE, around 1 and a half feet in shell length. I am not sure if they get much bigger than that but she was assuredly the biggest RES I had ever seen, and much like this turtle, she was much different in color from the little hatchings swimming around. SHe wasn't black but she was almost entirely one shade of brown. She still had a few distinctive markings but I doubt if she is still alive that she looks any different from a walking brown rock lol

[reptilegrrl]

It is very unusual for a female to darken like that. Are yo sure she was a RES and not some sort of intergrade?

[fric]

I had FRIC for 23 years and he started out to be a very colorful RES hatchling with beautiful markings. At about age 10 he started getting darker and eventually had a solid black shell with no markings at all. By his 20's he looked exactly like this turtle in the picture with his shell becoming whitish around the edges.
I've noticed these older looking turts among the group I feed in the pond on the golf course too and agree this is an old guy.

[reptilegrrl]

HOw cool, Fric! Isn't it nice to spend a life watching someone change? I think so.

Al was hatched in 2000, and I got him a few months later. 2006 was the year that his stripes turned completely black. He used to have green stripes on yellow, and as recently as January his head stripes were still green (some of this other stripes had turned black already). Now his head stripes are black on yellow, and the yellow stripes are narrower than they used to be. I think he might be one of those turtles who turns black, too.

[Pokey's Grandpa]

It is very unusual for a female to darken like that. Are yo sure she was a RES and not some sort of intergrade?

It's possible, she seems to look very similar and have similar markings, just very dark color brown all over.

There were abut 80% RES and then 10% painted, maps, false maps etcetera in that pond, so she could have been something else or a mixed breed I suppose.