Four of us from the cinti herp society (myself, Paul, Todd and Mike) went to a survey area near the Little Miami river on Sunday, with the goal primarily of documenting turtle species, and, hopefully a smooth softshell. Smooth softshell turtles are known to be in the little Miami river, but it has been since 1993 since one has been documented.

Spiny softshells are present as well, and much more common. They are often seen basking, but the smoothies usually do not bask outside the water, only in the shallows, so they are much more difficult to find. Smooths are only found in 4 Ohio rivers.

We started by scoping out good looking habitat around the river.


Here Paul and Mike search for evidence of turtles


…as does Todd.




Evidence of softshell turtles was all over this sandy beach.






PAYDIRT! The first find we made was this perfect SMOOTH softshell!

These guys don’t even try to bite!




Later we traveled the river via canoe. Just before we entered, Paul found this juvie black rat snake under a board.


This guy has a huge meal in his gut!



I just missed a northern water snake as it slipped off of a rock into the river….no pic…


Turtles were not as common on the logs as we had hoped, but we saw several…that slipped into the water before I could take pics. I JUST MISSED one that we think may have been a river cooter, which would have been a very significant find.

I got this picture of another basking turtle from very far away…but can’t make a 100% ID.
This one COULD be a small cooter, but more likely a map turtle.



We returned to the sandy beach spot, and this time discovered 2 nice spiny softshells.
Here’s a youngster….





And a very nice-looking mature male with a bold pattern. (by the way, spinys BITE)




The following are some comparisons of the smooth and spiny softshell turtles using the turtles we found yesterday:

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