- Joined
- Apr 23, 2015
- Messages
- 239
Today I added my 6 turtles to their new 8000 gallon pond. As expected, Fatty and Granny took to it immediately and can be seen all over the place. The 4 map turtles are much more skittish and I havn't seen since I placed in the pond on a lily pad. I took some documentation photos of them before adding them, I think it will probably be a while until I can get in-pond photos of them. The water is still a bit murky with stuff that isn't settling out and they don't want to be seen yet.
First up: Fatty!
Fatty is my oldest turtle, being one of the southern painted turtles I first got when I got into aquatic turtles when we lived in Illinois. That makes her(?) 6 years old! I had to go back and look at my first post for them to be sure. February of 2016 is when I got them. Unfortunately Slim, the other SPT I got with Fatty escaped while we were in CA. There was an outdoor 120 gallon acrylic tank that had a net covering it. I never did figure out how Slim did that...
Anyway. Here is Fatty as of today (named for the width of the racing stripe, not physical size).
Weighing in at 6.6 oz at 6 years old.
Next up we have: Granny!
Granny is a Razorback Musk Turtle that I got back in September of 2017 (~one year after Fatty). I noticed that I apparently never made a post when I first got her. She is the most feisty by far and almost bit my finger when I was retrieving her from the indoor aquarium. I was pretty impressed to see how far back her head would bend to bite at my hand while I was holding her. Blackbeard is the other Razorback musk that I got with Granny, but the stress of the move from CA to NM seemed to really affect him and he died about 2 weeks after we arrived in NM sadly.
Here she is front the front, getting ready to bite anything that comes close.
Here is her carapace and plastron. You can see she was quite the wiggler with the plastron shot.
And she weighed in the heaviest of all at 7 oz even.
Last but not least we have the 4 map turtles!
These guys I got in June of 2020, when COVID first locked everything down in the Bay Area, CA. I ordered 2 and 4 showed up. Whoops!
They are nominally Mississippi Map turtles, but I think they're likely all integrades to some degree. Especially Grey Eyes looks like they have a bit of Ouachitan Map turtle.
A couple of them have some minor defects in their carapace that I think is from some nipping when Blackbeard was temporarily in their 120 gallon tank. It could also have been amongst each other. They had many, many places to hide in the 120 gallon tank and more in the 180 gallon they upgraded to when we moved to NM, but I still occasionally saw signs of intimidation with them. All the more reason to get them into a big 8000 gallon pond!
First is Bane, so named for the most amount of damage to his carapace.
He weighed in the smallest at 3 oz near 2 years old. I'm assuming his relatively small size is due to being the least aggressive. I always had to/have to watch him at feeding time to make sure he gets his food.
Next is Chip! Named for the small nick in the carapace.
Chip is the largest of the maps. Weighing in at 4.3 oz.
Next is Fade, named for the degradation of the plastron pattern.
With a pre-pond weigh in of 4.2 oz a close second on Chip.
And bring up the rear we have Grey Eyes! You can see the coloration of his carapace and plastron, eye color, and different shape (flatter and wider) than the other three mark him as quite a bit different species-wise. The seller (Underground Reptiles) sent 2 extra turtles on accident and so I doubt their species control is all that great. They arrived and have been fine though, so no problems there really.
With the last picture of this very large post, we have Grey Eyes weigh in. 3.6 oz was pretty surprising to me since he seems bigger than the other 3. But I think thats the flatter,wider shape that makes him look bigger.
Hopefully I'll be able to catch them again in the outdoor pond in a while and measure them up. Chasing them in the water will be tough indeed!
Thanks for looking!
First up: Fatty!
Fatty is my oldest turtle, being one of the southern painted turtles I first got when I got into aquatic turtles when we lived in Illinois. That makes her(?) 6 years old! I had to go back and look at my first post for them to be sure. February of 2016 is when I got them. Unfortunately Slim, the other SPT I got with Fatty escaped while we were in CA. There was an outdoor 120 gallon acrylic tank that had a net covering it. I never did figure out how Slim did that...
Anyway. Here is Fatty as of today (named for the width of the racing stripe, not physical size).
Weighing in at 6.6 oz at 6 years old.
Next up we have: Granny!
Granny is a Razorback Musk Turtle that I got back in September of 2017 (~one year after Fatty). I noticed that I apparently never made a post when I first got her. She is the most feisty by far and almost bit my finger when I was retrieving her from the indoor aquarium. I was pretty impressed to see how far back her head would bend to bite at my hand while I was holding her. Blackbeard is the other Razorback musk that I got with Granny, but the stress of the move from CA to NM seemed to really affect him and he died about 2 weeks after we arrived in NM sadly.
Here she is front the front, getting ready to bite anything that comes close.
Here is her carapace and plastron. You can see she was quite the wiggler with the plastron shot.
And she weighed in the heaviest of all at 7 oz even.
Last but not least we have the 4 map turtles!
These guys I got in June of 2020, when COVID first locked everything down in the Bay Area, CA. I ordered 2 and 4 showed up. Whoops!
They are nominally Mississippi Map turtles, but I think they're likely all integrades to some degree. Especially Grey Eyes looks like they have a bit of Ouachitan Map turtle.
A couple of them have some minor defects in their carapace that I think is from some nipping when Blackbeard was temporarily in their 120 gallon tank. It could also have been amongst each other. They had many, many places to hide in the 120 gallon tank and more in the 180 gallon they upgraded to when we moved to NM, but I still occasionally saw signs of intimidation with them. All the more reason to get them into a big 8000 gallon pond!
First is Bane, so named for the most amount of damage to his carapace.
He weighed in the smallest at 3 oz near 2 years old. I'm assuming his relatively small size is due to being the least aggressive. I always had to/have to watch him at feeding time to make sure he gets his food.
Next is Chip! Named for the small nick in the carapace.
Chip is the largest of the maps. Weighing in at 4.3 oz.
Next is Fade, named for the degradation of the plastron pattern.
With a pre-pond weigh in of 4.2 oz a close second on Chip.
And bring up the rear we have Grey Eyes! You can see the coloration of his carapace and plastron, eye color, and different shape (flatter and wider) than the other three mark him as quite a bit different species-wise. The seller (Underground Reptiles) sent 2 extra turtles on accident and so I doubt their species control is all that great. They arrived and have been fine though, so no problems there really.
With the last picture of this very large post, we have Grey Eyes weigh in. 3.6 oz was pretty surprising to me since he seems bigger than the other 3. But I think thats the flatter,wider shape that makes him look bigger.
Hopefully I'll be able to catch them again in the outdoor pond in a while and measure them up. Chasing them in the water will be tough indeed!
Thanks for looking!
