Any ideas on sex and species of this turtle?

[nickpanzee]

My friend is a manager at a Petsmart and a customer brought this guy/gal in because they found him in their back yard. I agreed to take him in (my friend thought he was a tortoise). I only have tortoises besides this guy. I wanted to release it if it was a wild turtle, but I could not tell if it was. I think it started its life out wild and someone had it in their back yard and it got out and this person found it.
I know it is an Ornate box turtle, but is it a regular ornate or a desert ornate? And is it male or female. I'm not so good at telling with turtles. If you need any other pics to tell, let me know and I'll take them.

Thanks,
Nick

carapace

plastron

 

[Itort]

Terapene ornata ornata female. She appears to have been a captive kept in a little bit too damp enviornment (the missing outer covering on front scutes).

 

[dmmj]

LOL ask and you shall recieve, an answer here.

 

[egyptiandan]

It's looking like a Desert box turtle, T.o.luteola, female to me. The difference is the amount of rays on the second coastal scute. 5 to 8 rays for T.o.ornata and 11 to 14 for T.o.luteola. I'm counting 11 rays in the second coastal scute.
She is WC Nick, just not from where you are. Most likely she was taken from the El Paso area of Texas.

Danny

 

[nickpanzee]

Thanks Larry and Danny

I'm glad I didn't let her go in the TX hill country then. I was thinking like she looked more like a desert ornate than a regular, but this is the first one I have seen in person. It's good to know how to tell the difference

Now the question I have is: Does anyone have a breeding group of these guys to produce captive bred babies?

Nick

 

[DENISEP]

Hi, I currently have 7 boxies including ornates and desert. The attachment has 2 pictures, the top one is a desert and the bottom oneView attachment turtles.pdf is an ornate. Hopefully the pictures will further assist you with identifying your boxie.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

She's just beautiful, and judging from how she looks in your hand I'd say she's pretty big, bigger then normal...and you take really good pictures...