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Katrina
at Sat Jul 18 21:54:13 2009 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Katrina ]
Scutes: Common enough in both wild and captive hatched turtles. I've heard that it's from irregular (too high?) incubation temperatures, but not certain about that. It's just a cosmetic thing, as far as I know. I've seen lots of adult sliders and a few adult box turtles with extra scutes (one had 21 scutes instead of the normal 13).
As for the ID, I thought western from the carapace color, but the head says midland, so I'd go with midland or an intergrade fo midland and western. What does the plastron look like?
Most of the subspecies have a dorsal stripe in different populations, not just the southerns, although it's usually a weak stripe. Easterns in MD often have a good dorsal stripe.
Katrina
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