DAILY NEWS (Bowling Green, Kentucky) 19 April 08 Sliders are misunderstood turtles (Geordon T. Howell)
If I had a dollar for every red-eared slider turtle I have seen crossing the road in recent days, I would be wearing a big smile and ordering a new GPS unit. Each spring, sliders emerge from the ponds, lakes or rivers where they have hibernated throughout the cold winter and strike out for new territories and mates. But this year there seems to be more of them out and about than ever.
I’ve ferried no less than a dozen off the pavement and into roadside ditches lately, but a great deal of their comrades have not fared so well. Red-eared sliders are this area’s most common water turtle and anyone who has driven country roads lately can attest to their stable population. For all the red-eared sliders’ commonness, I believe them to be slightly misunderstood by those of us who share the same waters and lands with them.
On the rare occasion - such as this time of year and later in the spring when laying their eggs - that the turtles are spotted out of water, they are often mistaken for box turtles. When cruising around fishing bobbers and curiously poking their heads out of the water to see what is happening, they are sometimes mistook for snapping turtles.
Sliders, however, are quite different from both the land-loving box turtle and ornery snapping turtle that inhabit the same areas. Their normally docile nature around humans, coupled with a stunning shell - the colors and patterns of which are usually obscured by dried mud or algae - have made them a staple of the pet industry for decades. In fact, the red-eared slider’s range has spread to foreign soils because of the exportation of countless tame turtles to other countries that somehow end up escaping or being released by their owners when the reptiles wear out their welcome or grow too large.
As such an extremely adaptable introduced species, the slider has become problematic in some areas of Europe and Asia because of the competition it creates with native turtle species. If you happen across one of these nomadic sliders, which seem to have a case of rambling fever at the present, distinguishing the sexes is fairly easy. Although males are generally smaller than their female counterparts, they have longer tails than the ladies and very lengthy front claws on their webbed feet. For a water turtle, sliders are quite fast on land and can be difficult to get a handle on. Additionally, when picked up, one of their first and most notable defenses is to urinate, so be forewarned if you decide to examine one of the passers-by more closely.
Sliders presumably got their name from the way they slide off the rocks, logs or banks that they bask on when disturbed, and anyone who has spent time near a body of water has surely witnessed a gathering of sliders soaking up the sun. Like a lot of animals that hatch from eggs, nearly every predator that swims, walks or slithers will eat a juvenile slider. But as they mature and become full grown the turtles have very few worries about other wild creatures.
Red-eared sliders have a lifespan not much shorter than our own, and while they begin life predominantly as carnivores, later in life their diet consists more of plant matter. But they are very opportunistic eaters at every stage of life and leave nothing to waste in their home waters.
Keep an eye out for the red-eared sliders while driving in the coming weeks. And if you’re fortunate enough to cross paths with one up close, take a moment to learn more about one of our most common and colorful critters.
Sliders are misunderstood turtles

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