Red necked pond turtle (Mauremys nigricans)

These 4 hatchlings arrived yesterday.
Pretty excited to work with them. Looks like it will take a while for them to outgrow their tub.
Thank you Paul and thanks @Anthony P for suggesting them.

Looks like the photos were posted twice.

Twice the eye candy! I love the one with the pink blush plastron.

Very cool..what are these? Have a pic of their habitat?

Alex Z said:

Very cool..what are these? Have a pic of their habitat?

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Red necked pond turtles from China. Also known as Kwangtung river turtle and black-necked pond turtle.
Virtually extinct in the wild.
The habitat is a large cement mixing tub on a small angle with 2" of water in the deep end. I added a big piece of cork bark and some slate to bask on. The cork bark is curved enough that they can hide under it and still stick their heads out of the water.

Outstanding! One thing I can add is, they go bonkers over clams. Same vigor as when they see a worm. Absolutely love these guys...

Amazing!!

Yay! I love them. I think I am a month or so away from hatching my first one of these. We will see..

In the 2012 TSA Magazine, Ben Anders basically begged keepers to consider working with them, because the cause is THAT worthwhile

Anthony P said:

Yay! I love them. I think I am a month or so away from hatching my first one of these. We will see..

In the 2012 TSA Magazine, Ben Anders basically begged keepers to consider working with them, because the cause is THAT worthwhile

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Hoping for the best with your eggs Ant...

As for nigricans being 'THAT' worthwhile, I agree. But it's sad that for so many keepers/breeders it took them being worth a load of money before they bothered to notice what neat turtles they are. Just think of the prices if Reeve's turtles suddenly become the next Tulip Craze.

While changing the water in the tub I took advantage of a cloudy morning to get a few photos.
Each one is different.

It's hard to see but this one has some reddish brown coloring while the other three look jet black.

They are still fairly shy.

Shy or not, they are a very attractive species.
Pretty sure that they will become more responsive in time.

<3

Growing...

Plastrons starting to fade.

This is the first time they didn’t stink when I handled them to change their water.

They are looking good Charlie. Perfect growth.
Just to clarify...are they outside in a pond, or in an aquarium?

cdmay said:

They are looking good Charlie. Perfect growth.
Just to clarify...are they outside in a pond, or in an aquarium?

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Thanks Carl.
For now they live outside in a low oval stock tank with 4-5 inches of water and lots of plants and logs to climb on.
They chow down on rams horn and pond snails. They live with some guppies but I’m not sure if they eat them.
They prefer reptimin over other pellets.

These tanks and tubs are in a large walk in style cage I briefly used as a bird aviary. It has 1/2 inch hardware cloth sides and a solid roof. The smaller tubs have a few spotted turtle hatchlings and a lone fl box turtle hatchling.