Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My son bought a small painted turtle at a local pet shop. Unfortunatly the person who sold him the turtle could not tell him if it was an eastern or western painted turtle. All he could tell him was it was one or the other, because those were the only two types of painted turtles his boss gets. Is there anyway to tell what type of turtle he did buy. Thanks for all your help.

Eastern painteds have one solid color on the underside of their shell (their plastron), westerns have an orange color that has a pretty vivid black and yellow pattern.

Here's an eastern:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/turtles/thumbs/images/73.jpg

Here's a western:
http://www.holoweb.com/cannon/painted.htm