Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've read that you can tell the age by counting the rings.

I was just looking at the classifieds and they have some captive bred box turtles that are young ones yet it looks like it has many, many growth rings.

So am I missing something, misinformed or just misguided?

How do you age a turtle?
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Tracy

you can estimate a turtles age by growth rings but it's not accurate as the amount they get per year varies.
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My Site
1.2.1 Terrapene Carolina Triunguis
0.1 Nymphicus hollandicus
1.1 Melopsittacus undulatus
1.0 American Cocker Spaniels
1.0 American Short Hair? Cat
1.1 Rouen Ducks

Rouen is correct...
It was long thought that one simply had to count the growth rings on a turtle to accurately determine its age, like you would on a tree. This is not exactly true for turtles: each 'ring' can indicate a temporary cessation of feeding or even a dramatic change in diet, and not simply a year's worth of growth.
For instance, a wild turtle could conceivably end up with three rings at the end of one growing season, simply due to eating well for a few weeks and then fasting for a few, eating again, fasting...you get the picture.
In captive raised turtles you might see rings caused by a change in diet.
Another thing to bear in mind is that a turtle's shell does not continue to grow in the same way once it reaches its mature size, so, after a certain age you wouldn't be able to really count rings: also the shell can become very smooth over the course of many years, leaving no rings to count.

All I know is that you can tell it's an oldie if its plastron is very smooth from all those years of crawling around.