Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello all,

in Pritchard's book "enyclopedia of turtles" on page 281, you'll find a photo of an older white faced, obviously large gulf coast box turtle.

The only one I ever saw that looked exactly like that one, was a huge(at least 8 inch) male, that had to be easily over 30 years of age or more(an educated guess), that someone I knew owned and wouldn't sell to me....well by the time I finally convinced him to sell the majestic beast to me, he was in the process of moving and had stored all his turtles at a "friends" house who then proceeded to kill it...I was not happy to say the least...

Well my mission since then has been to find similar gulf coasts. Do any of you fellow box turtle keepers own this "type" of T. c. major? or do they just all lose their pattern and get the white face from age? Please show us some pix!!

Thank you

My friend, you are a few days late. You just missed the great Gulf coast box turtle debate. No, I'm kidding. Seriously, though, on the "Turtles-What kind?" post I was talking to a guy about obtaining pure T.c.major. It seems that there are few that are the pure strains described in our field guides. I myself have been trying to obtain CB babies from people with true major adults. It seems that there is much more intergradation than I previously thought. I hope that someone will send you some great pics of adults, as I'd like to see them. Also, I'm always interested in pure, CB babies. For the heck of it, here are my Gulf coast hatchlings.

forgot numero dos

well, again with Mr. Pritchard's book "encyclopedia of turtles", if one flips to page 168, top of the page.

Here is a very interesting quote from the book and the animal we seem to be looking for:

"One phase of this race(carolina major) has no counterpart among other races; this is an almost uniformly black animal, with a white face and snout"

I would be very interested to know who has this phase of T. c. major in their collections....

I've seen such animals, with one exception. The carapace apparently doesn't always have to be so dark. Here's how I understand the "true" major as a subspecies. It's a factor of both structure and behavior. They are closer to a water turtle than any of the other box turtles both in appearance and habit. They have relatively flat, hourglass shaped shells with dramatically flared margins...mainly the rear and above the head. They are large, with long legs and neck. Lastly, and fascinating to me, some will swim underwater, eat underwater, and even hibernate underwater! And like you said, white on their heads...sometimes even grayish or blueish.

Back to the question at hand, "are these present in any collections?" I think that this species is rare in the pet trade because of the legal protection that it receives in its range. For most other species of box turtle, there is at least one state with large populations that allows trade. Florida allows the possession of only two Terrapene carolina, and I don't think they differentiate between subspecies...I may be wrong. Most people want bauri out of Fl, not major. Then, Louisiana has just fairly recently passed some legislation although I don't really know the specifics. I don't think that people have made the effort to establish true major captive populations like they have with the other subspecies. I personally know of only one guy in Texas. I've asked him to send me pictures, but he's more focused on rattlesnakes. He said that he just keeps them because he enjoys them.

Here's a site that I like mainly for the side by side comparison photos. I don't agree with some of what's written.
http://www.pogospals.com/pogospals/Box_Turtle_Photos.html

I'm sorry that I'm not able to help you out. I'm in the same boat.