Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a box turtle from a friend of mine today. The friend who gave it to me has kept easterns for about 11 years. He said she is an eastern, but she doesn't look like my other easterns. I'm wondering if its a gulf coast because my easterns have a solid black bottom, and this one has a yellow bottom with a few random black blotches. The only other thing I can think of is that she is a really old eastern. She looks really old, she's big and has hardly any growth rings, her shells worn down, and she has signs of the wear and tear she got(She is wild caught).

Thanks - Cliff

Plastron color in easterns is highly variable; proportions, shades, and patterns of light and dark colors all vary. Does the carapace flare out strongly at the edge? That's a distinct Gulf Coast characteristic (though I have also seen it in one or two easterns).

By the way, did you ever get your redbelly pictures up?

The carapace flares out at the back part of her shell, almost like a deformity. The person who gave her to me caught her in Tennessee, and usually releases them in the woods near his house, but saved this one for me since he was coming down to Florida. She eats like there is no tomorrow. I'm leaning more towards Eastern, because she has the yellow-orange blotches on her shell like an eastern. I've only seen gulf coast up close once or twice in my life and they had a brown, almost patternless shell.

I didn't get them developed yet. I'll try to post them in the photos section once I get them developed, since I couldn't post pics of my sulcata in the sulcata forum. This is confusing, I know how to do pretty much everything computer-related except post photos.

Just found them. I did get them developed but I didn't order the disc. I'll have to take the negatives back sometime this week and try and get them on disc, then I'll try to post them.

If it was caught in Tennessee, it was certainly an eastern; the nearest Gulf Coasts are a few hundred miles from any part of TN. I've seen Easterns with flared carapace margins in Stewart and Montgomery counties, TN. A release is possible but unlikely, as turtles cannot be sold in TN and most pets are locally wild-caught.

RE: posting photos, the easiest thing to do is set up a free photo-hosting account at a site like www.photobucket.com or www.imageshack.com; you can upload photos directly from your hard drive to the host, and then simply copy and paste the image tag (looks like ) to your forum post. You can also click on the Photos tab at the top of this page to set up a forum-specific photo-hosting account.

Shoot, it tried to process my example as an actual image. It will look like [ IMG ] nameofpicture [ IMG ], except without the spaces.

You can upload photos here too. Click the photos tab at the top of the page. Then when you post a message, all you have to do is highlight the photo you want to post.
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.11.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch(rabbit)
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband