Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Doing some fieldwork down there. Found some ornate box turtles. Nice change from the luteolas. haha

here is a tiny guy i saw scrambling across teh sand, thought it was a beetle at first.
-ian

Took her about 30 minutes to overcome her shyness, but after that she eagerly ripped grasshoppers from hand!

-ian

That has got to be one of the prettiest Ornates I have seen.

spent a few minutes with this chap, he didnt want to take from hand, but it munched down when tossed some bugs.

Ian, thanks for sharing your photos!
I admit that after a few weeks or months of not hearing from you, I look forward to seeing your latest discoveries, even though I'm more of an Eastern person myself.
Kudos to you and your 'take only pictures, leave only footprints' approach.

Stephanie

Thanks, Stephanie. Unfortunately I was doing some herp work on a site which will probably end up holding a uranium enrichment facility. Lots of critters will end up on the short end of the stick. Luckily the awesome female was on some nearby state lands, but the male and hatchling were not so lucky.

I was on the Sevilleta NWR south of Albuquerque yesterday, they havent received summer rains yet, but while I was there a quick drizzle fell for about 5 minutes. It was enough to get a couple box turtles moving, one was an old female, full of eggs. Can't wait for the rains to come and the turtles to come out.

-ian

I'm sorry, I'm so new to all this . . . what does it this mean??

"on a site which will probably end up holding a uranium enrichment facility. Lots of critters will end up on the short end of the stick. Luckily the awesome female was on some nearby state lands, but the male and hatchling were not so lucky."

I guess what I'm asking is what will happen to those two turtles?? Obviously something not good, but what and why??

I'm not sure what will happen to them. Regardless of what happens to them, there will certainly be others that get demolished. It's pretty depressing to think that whenever something is built, animals get dead or displaced. I remember seeing a recently bulldozed, isolated patch of desert in phoenix, AZ, there were lots of jackrabbits hanging around on the street medians and crushed in the road, they didnt have anywhere to go.
ian

So cool, I love finding these little guys in my Ornate pens.