quick ID please

Yvonne G

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@Markw84 @Anthony P

could they be yellow belly sliders? Or one of the map varieties?

Stupid school bus driver. What kine of lesson is she teaching the kiddies?
 

Anthony P

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They're actually Florida Red Bellied Turtles, which are cooters in the Pseudemys genus. The scientific name is Pseudenys nelsoni. They are identified by their coloration, the head markings and the radiating bars that extend outward, one to each plural scute, from the edge of the vertebral to the edge of the marginal scutes.
 

tglazie

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I was about to say, definitely nelsoni, Florida red bellies. I've raised up a few of these. Big, pretty turtles.

T.G.
 

Anthony P

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I already have RES that birds were eating that is now big enough and well enough to release.
Now these guys are living with him. All stacked up under a heat lamp.
It'll be some time until they are sturdy enough to be safe.
I would think twice about releasing the RES. They are invasive in both SC and FL, assuming this was in one of those states. I would've let the birds eat him...
 

Gillian M

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The RES was found along the same area of water as the others.
Run over partially by a bus and then pecked and dropped by a seagull from what I was told.
Sorry about that.

Drivers do go "nuts" at times.
 

tglazie

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I would think twice about releasing the RES. They are invasive in both SC and FL, assuming this was in one of those states. I would've let the birds eat him...

Indeed, I was going to say, aren't red ears an invasive species east of the Appalachians? Despite this, I don't think it matters at this point. The red ears have reached a point of critical mass now. There's a population of them on six continents. Within a hundred years, there will be a population of them in every country. Truly the Norway rat of turtles. I've always had a soft spot for them, I've gotta say. In all my years of keeping turtles and tortoises, I only managed to live two or three of those years without having a red ear rescue in my collection.

T.G.
 

tglazie

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Awesome. I don't know, I guess it's just a matter of taste, but I always found red ears to be awesome. They eat anything, they've got that amusing beggar's personality, and I personally think many of them are quite attractively marked and colored. Unfortunately, their size and propensity toward filth that comes with that size make them terrible pets, but they make fantastic garden pond dwellers so long as you don't mind a few of your fish going missing in the spring.

T.G.
 

ZEROPILOT

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I'm really not fond of them
I just get a stupid rescue mentality when I see an animal in distress.
I might post them as free or low cost pets on Craigslist and see if anyone is interested that doesn't sound like they'd end up killing them.
 

Toddrickfl1

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I from Florida and caught many of these when I was a kid, definitely a Peninsula Cooter
 
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