Ryan makes some good points.



Also, when it comes to Painteds...most who have kept Painteds know how often their shells peel as they grow. When a turtle grows, the new scute is formed underneath the old scute. The old scute will literally be sitting on top of the new scute. Painteds and some other aquatic turtles have a tendency to shed these older scutes. Box turtles tend to hold onto them. You can see the adaptive advantage...box turtles being more rigid and Painteds being more streamlined.



I have an excellent illustration of scute formation in an old book of mine. It is "Turtles, Tortoises, and Terrapins" 2nd edition (English translation) by Fritz Jurgen Obst, copyright 1988. My scanner is on the fritz(hahaha), but here's what it says...page 170, "Regular sloughing of skin from individual horny scutes is normal only in a few Pond terrapins such as Chrysemys and Cuora and in certain Side-necked turtles such as Emydura, Chelodina, and Elseya."



The illustration and key give a demonstration of this process in Painted turtles. Normally, I wouldn't reference such an old book (yikes, 1988 is old), but it's a great illustration. I'll try to remember to get this scanned at Office Depot whenever the flu releases its grip on my family.



If Fritz Jurgen Obst sounds familiar to some of you...he has a subspecies of Box turtle named after him. The Keeled Box turtle (Pyxidea mouhotii obsti).

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