My class at school is raising 6 Plymouth Redbelly Turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris). They are hatchlings, I think just over a month old. We've had them for three weeks so far. They are endangered in MA, so what we do is raise them untill june and release them. The conditions we raise them in cause them to grow as much as they would in the wild in 5 years. The water temps are about 80-84 degrees F.
They get minimal human contact,of which is us taking them out once a week and getting their stats or the two other small classes that don't go in there too often, and won't even be touching them. My class only has 14 kids in it, and they are in a seperate building (Kind of like a high tech shed) so students are not constantly tapping on the glass or handling them. It also keeps them from getting to used to seeing humans walking by every day.

As of today their carapace lengths are: 35mm, 36mm, 36mm, 36mm, 37mm, 37mm

And weights (in grams): 10.9, 11.7, 11.7, 12.1, 13.1, 13.7

I'm not really a turtle person, but I love these guys!


Excuse the horribleness of the pictures, the turtles have a hard time holding still when I want to take a picture...



One of them hiding under the turtle dock thing.



An overhead shot, I love how the carapace has that green and black design on it.


A plastron shot. I think it seems more orange than red, but I'm asuming thats where they got the name from.


Another plastron shot of a different turtle. This photo came out the best.
Some of the students drew pictures of each of the different turtles plastrons so we can tell them apart. They don't have their scutes notched yet, which is (was?) supposed to be done by the people who gave them too us (Mass Wildlife I think).

I might try taking more pictures next week.
I will definatly have updated pictures in may/june before we release them.

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