Recently got a phone call from an old friend who informed me that he had sold his house here in south Florida and was moving to California. Because of the move he had decided not to take two male Colombian red-footed tortoises that he had obtained from me back in 1986. One of the tortoises I...
Haven't been posting here for some time. Lots of personal stuff the past couple of years plus big changes with my job. And then dealing with Photobucket.
Although I've cut way back on my turtle collection, I still keep my favorites.
Like my red-footed tortoises, red-cheek muds are one of the...
Some months ago a neighbor of mine called me to report that another neighbor had found one of my missing tortoises. "Oh yeah, its exactly like your other ones, just smaller. But the same markings and color"
The thing was, I wasn't missing any of my tortoises. Or was I?
You see for over 20 years...
In the following I will attempt to review and critique the Redfoot Care Sheet that is published on this Forum by Redfoot NERD.
I will say at the outset that I feel Mr. Kilgore (Redfoot NERD) means well and that he cares about his animals. However, there are some errors, both great and small...
The Oaxacan mud turtle, Kinosternon oaxacae was only recently described (well, 1980 anyway) by Berry and Iverson based on a small group of mud turtles from Oaxaca, Mexico. They were pretty much unknown to people outside of Mexico until a few years ago when a number of adults showed up in...
The red-cheek mud turtle, Kinosternon scorpioides cruentatum, occurs from eastern Mexico down through the Yucatan Peninsula and south to about Honduras. Most that are being maintained in the United States in recent years (decades) are reportedly from Guatemalan imports.
I am currently...
Here is another one of my males. I never named him, or at least, haven't yet. Been a few years so I need to get on it. Anyway, he was a decent looking neonate but not spectacular.
In the above photo you can see that he did indeed color up nicely!
This female I picked up at the Expo in...
Since Photobucket went nuts and froze up all of my photos it took me some time to go through the hassle of finding a new hosting service (Tinypic---thanks Terry O.!) and then re-loading a bunch of pictures.
Oddly, I just found out that Tinypic is owned by Photobucket. Feh...
Anyway, here are...
OK, I have a new photo hosting service I'm trying out. This photo was taken on Palm Beach three days after Irma went by us. Old ocean estate Ficus tree and outhouse.
It seems that this plan didn't work out well for either of them.
Hurricane Irma is bearing down on us in south Florida and everyone is in preparation mode.
Oddly, despite having 'perfect' weather for red-footed tortoises (= hot, wet with afternoon showers) NONE of my adult red-foots have budged from their hides since Wednesday afternoon. They've ignored food...
The Daytona Beach annual reptile mayhem begins next week.
As usual we will be there for the Friday Night Turtle Talks. Hope to see the usual suspects too..
Red-cheek mud turtles, Kinosternon scorpioides cruentatum have been my favorite aquatic turtles since I was in high school many moons ago (the 70's!). I've kept and bred them off and on for a long time. About seven years ago I began to acquire them again after not keeping any for a few years. I...
Look at this face...
I know... adorable, right?
The big eyes, the cute little hands...
Even his (or her) plastron and underside are cool looking...
But underneath all of this disarming innocence lies a nutty little predator. This is a two month old Claudius angustatus, or narrow bridged...
OK, hopefully these images will now be visible. They were taken by Jim Buskirk while he was in China assisting with writing a book.
First, Sacalia quadriocellata adult male.
Adult female
Breeding group
Juveniles
Ten month old juvenile
Sacalia bealei adult male
Adult female---who...
Since I began keeping reptiles as a kid in the early 70s a concept has been drilled into my head by other, mostly older keepers. That concept is this: Don't maintain a single specimen. This was commonly referred to as 'dead ending'.
The idea was that since the reptiles we were keeping were often...
I recently received a trio of Mexican white-lip mud turtles (Kinosternon leucostomum) from a good friend in Germany.
The trip for these turtles took a week, which for a mud turtle really isn't a problem. After all, these little animals endure very harsh conditions where they live and 'being...
Today was cleaning day for the four aquariums in the Florida Room.
I've devised a system where I run a siphon (an old garden hose) into the tanks outside through my laundry room. Then I run a garden hose that's connected to a spigot in the same way to replenish the water the siphon removes.
Here...
Everyone is busy now for one reason or another. So I'm just throwing up some images. Cause we're all bored.
First, red-cheeks...
Staurotypus salvinii...
Some Key mud turtles from the Lower Keys in Florida...
Key mud turtle habitat...
Some Kinosternon acutum...
Kinosternon...
It has become time for me to back-up one of my old Hova Bator egg incubators. At 14 years old and running almost year 'round it still works perfectly but like NASA, I'm all about redundancy.
So last week I contacted the company directly online an ordered two new model 1602N units. The 1602N is...