Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We rescued a turtle living in a small bowl and she now lives in our koi and goldfish pond. She was found in Louisiana as a wild turtle a couple of years ago. Her shell is approximately seven inches long.

Her head is deep green and yellow striped. Her head has no red markings. Her top shell is dark green with faint yellow markings. The bottom shell is yellow with green marking in the middle.

She eats heartily and suns on two dry areas we made for her.

I will e-mail a picture of her to anyone available to help. (I can't seem to figure out how to attach her picture.) We would appreciate any help, as we want to ensure she is taken care of properly. Many thanks.

One method of trying to figure out what the species is of the turtle you found is by going to the World Chelonian Trust web site linked below the photo. Once on the main page click on Species GalleryThis will take you to a page where you can choose between Galleries by Genus or Galleries by Geography. Click on Galleries by Geography. This will take you to a sensitive world map. Click on your geographic area wherever you are on the globe and a gallery will come up of all the species found in that area. (of the 259 species and subspecies that are presently in the galleries.)

Once you have found photos of turtles that might be it, check that species in the Galleries by Genus to see more pics of that species.

Darrell

World Chelonian Trust

green with yellow stripes but no red is probably one of the cooter species or a yellow bellied slider. The care for these is nearly identical, with the exception of providing more plant material for the cooter or more meat items occasionally to the slider. Cooter adult sizes are also much larger than sliders.

Are the front claws of this turtle extremely long? That is usually an indicator of male turtles in both these groups of species, and would mean the adult size would be substantially smaller than that of a female.

In either case, for basic care, make sure your koi pond has plenty of aquatic plants and be prepared for them to make a large part of the turtle's diet. It should enjoy living outdoors!

check to see that it has striped verticle lines on its skin near the back legs and tail. If so, you got a Western Chicken Turtle. Very cool animal.