Fly River Turtles?

[TxTortMan]

Well yesterday I was shopping at Cabelas for some clothes, and in one of their massive fish tanks they had what I think are 2 fly river turtles. They were in there with one giant red eared slider and some huge fish. Can anybody confirm that they were fly river turtles? The store had them listed as soft shells, so I figured it was mistaken identity. Also yesterday I went down to the pond behind my house to cast net and caught multiple turtles but one strange one was a red eared slider which had 7 vertebrate scutes. I have never seen any with 7. Just thought that was interesting and wanted to share the turtle experiences of yeasterday.

 

[AustinASU]

Those are 100% fly rivers.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

You can always tell fly river turtles because, although they do have a rubbery shell, it is not as flat as in true softshells. And, most importantly, fly rivers are the only turtles from fresh and brackish waters whose forelimbs have evolved into flippers, like a sea turtle. All other fresh and brackish water turtles paddle with all four feet, but fly rivers perform underwater "flying" with their flippers, the way sea turtles do. Cool find!

As for the RES with an anomalous scute, it probably just incubated at temperatures that were just a bit too high. You usually see that in CBB turtles hatched in artificial incubators, but it's not unheard of in the wild, either.

 

[TxTortMan]

I thought they were fly river turtles but were wondering what they were doing in the cabelas fish tank. They mostly laid in the bottom, but when they were swimming they were beautiful! Thank you both!

 

[Shredder]

Very nice! Def fly rivers wish we had em at my cabelas