Blue and orange male :)

[DixieParadise]

Wow, what a looker. He is absolutely gorgeous..

 

[terryo]

Here's Milton, who used to be Millie. I will try and get one when he is cleaned a bit. You can't see the pretty patterns on his shell in this picture.

 

[diamondbp]

Here's Milton, who used to be Millie. I will try and get one when he is cleaned a bit. You can't see the pretty patterns on his shell in this picture.

It's harder to say for sure with younger turtles rather than adults. The first things I look for when determining locality for a Gulf coast males are things like pattern/ head size & shape/ the bifold cusp on the upper jaw/ the flare of the shell/ etc. So with that being said it would be hard to say with Milton until he has a few more years under his belt.

I would highly suspect that Milton may not be mostly gulf coast but may have some eastern genetics in him. When he reaches his full size it would be easier to say for sure.

So if I HAD to guess I would suspect he is probably from either east mississippi or alabama and probably from local that is 100 plus miles from the coast on the fringe of where gulf coast genetics stop and eastern genetics begin.

Again that is a TOTAL guess but in the future I should be able to say with a little more certainty. But I always have to keep in mind that some of my Louisiana gulf coast look nothing like what you would suspect for down here. It's all a guessing game.

How did you acquire Milton?

 

[terryo]

Tom (the dog trainer) gave him to me. Here's one from today. It rained so he's wet and maybe you can see him a little better.

 

[diamondbp]

He is beautiful . I think it's safe to say he has a strong amount of eastern influence .

 

[cdmay]

I've found a few males with blue on their heads and one that had a lot of blue AND yellow. The general idea is that the older animals develop the white but but I've seen plenty of males that had white and were clearly not old.

This is the only photo of a gulf coastie that I have readily available to post. Most of the blue was on the underside of his neck.
He was found crossing Hwy 65 in the Apalachicola National Forest. We released him a short distance away back into the forest.

Yeh there are definitely some incredible Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle area with all white heads and blue cheeks/necks. I've seen some mind blowing males in the past and would love to see any other pictures you may be able to find of males from that area.

The main reason I love my male is that blue/white headed males are unheard of down here. I know a few older cajun men who used to catch reptiles for a living and I have showed them pictures of my blue headed male and not one has ever seen anything like it (and I know they have all seen thousands of turtles in the past).

So it's just an extremely rare trait in Louisiana and I'm beyond lucky to have raised this beautiful creature. His personality is just as awesome as his looks! He is one of my favorite animals. Walks right up to me every single time I go in my yard and he is always out making his rounds, plus he loves the ladies lol.

I hope to have him in an isolated breeding program either next year or the year after.
Thanks again for the input.

OK, I went through my discs and only found these two males with white heads. This first one has some blue on his neck but he also had blue on his head, back on the temporal region. He wouldn't stick his head out when I was trying to get his picture so you can't see it. He was found on Hwy 67 east of Telogia in the ANF.



This male was found east of Sumatra on a dirt road in the ANF. Pretty typical white headed male.



My other shots are on slides but I know I've photographed at least a couple of others. The best one I found is pictured in a little book on box turtles by **** Bartlett. The photo is of a blue and yellow headed male about to cross Hwy 65 just south of Sumatra in the ANF.

 

[diamondbp]

I actually don't have that book surprisingly so I think I'll order it tonight. Thanks for those great shots. I really love the panhandle gulf coast. They are some of the most impressive turtles in NOrth America

 

[cdmay]

I actually don't have that book surprisingly so I think I'll order it tonight. Thanks for those great shots. I really love the panhandle gulf coast. They are some of the most impressive turtles in NOrth America

Agree completely about the gulf coasties from the panhandle. Some from down near Eastpoint on the gulf are the largest of all.

That book by Bartlett is just a little paperback edition...part of a series.

 

[diamondbp]

Yeh I agree there is some monster gulf coast from the panhandle. Especially considering overall mass.
Now some Louisiana specimens are 7-8 inches but the ones I've seen are mostly long and not necessarily massive.
The largest that I personally have ever seen was an 8.5 inch male that had both length and height and was a heavy massive beast. But I have also seen extremely small old mature males that aren't but 5 inches are so.
I would say that Florida GC are consistently larger than LA specimens but if you took the largest of both varieties they would rival very closely.