Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yesterday the weather here was so nice I took Scooter outside to get some rays & fresh air.
He kind of freaked out at first but after a while he really enjoyed getting to walk around on the ground.
I snapped a few shots but so far only put two in the gallery.
He's such a good boy, I can't wait to find his new tank.

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PHRatz

Funny look on his face. Like he really is thinking about where to go next.
You have raised him from a hatchling, right?

>>Funny look on his face. Like he really is thinking about where to go next.
>>You have raised him from a hatchling, right?

Yes I've raised him from a hatchling. he's 10 years old this year.
One reason why I've been so desperate to find him a new home is because he's grown & needs more space.
He's such a docile turtle that I honestly thought he was female until he grew that boney spike on the end of his tail when he was about 3 years old.

I'll just have to keep letting him have outings until I find that new home.
In the meantime I've been seriously considering using a small wading pool for him to have a little supervised outdoor fun in from time to time during summer.
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PHRatz

Can you provide a photo of the tail? BOTH sexes have a horny spike at the tail tip but the mail has a huge tail.

...not mail.

>>Can you provide a photo of the tail? BOTH sexes have a horny spike at the tail tip but the mail has a huge tail.

Really? I'd read in a book that only males have the hard spike on the end of the tail.
My painted was 3 years old when he flashed me, he was a CB hatchling when I got him 12 years ago. As he grew up he grew the long nails & the long thick tail with the cloaca far away from the plastron so I've known for sure for years that he's male. As a male he's quite the aggressive turtle too. If he were a large turtle he'd be dangerous.

Scooter though has never flashed me, as I understand it they reach puberty at a later age than painted & sliders do but at 10 years he should have reached & passed that by now.
So I just assumed that he's a boy based on that spike.
I'll get a pic ASAP & post it.
Geeze it could change my whole perspective if he's a she. lol
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PHRatz

I think both sexes of all U.S. mud/musk turtles have terminal spines on their tails. But the males are much larger.
However, an adult male yellow mud turtle will also have a tail that is just about like your pinky finger in shape and size. The terminal spine is the LEAST noticeable feature! Females have little nothing tails with a little spine at the tip. But males have huge tails...you can't miss it.

>>I think both sexes of all U.S. mud/musk turtles have terminal spines on their tails. But the males are much larger.
>>However, an adult male yellow mud turtle will also have a tail that is just about like your pinky finger in shape and size. The terminal spine is the LEAST noticeable feature! Females have little nothing tails with a little spine at the tip. But males have huge tails...you can't miss it.

Ok so I tried to get some pics today but Scooter wouldn't chill out so I could get a good tail shot. I can try again later.
However... based on what you say I think he's a girl!

I thought Scooter is a girl originally then the spike made me change my mind but from what it sounds like now, you are describing the same thing that's true for our local desert box turtles. The females have a dinky little tail, so tiny you have to really look to see it. Their tails are tiny like Scooter's tail is, I can't pull Scooter's tail out for a photo because it's a tiny little tail.
Male box turtles here have this large thick tail with hugely thick back legs. You can't miss it when you see a male, you'd have to be blind to not see the diff in the males & females.
Scooter is a rescue who came from this area but these yellow muds are so elusive that I've yet to see one in the wild ever, & I've lived here since the '70s. So I have nothing to compare Scooter to.
Let me show you some box tails & you tell me if you think the diff between male & female in them is the same for muds.
Here's a back shot of Shell E, she's a rescue she's battered looking because she was chewed up by a dog.. what I'm saying is it's not my fault she looks this bad. lol
I'll make 2 posts because I'll have to hunt for a male photo.. that'll take a minute.

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PHRatz

Ok here's 2 pics of Chip, he's my latest rescue who was brought to me after very nearly being killed by a dog so that's why his plastron is all acrylic.
My vet did a fabulous job putting him back together. You can see how big his tail is in both pics even though it's kind of far away as he's sneaking up on the sulcata you can't miss that long thick tail.
So you would say the diff in male & female muds is similar to this diff in box turtles?

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PHRatz

Another nice save!
Clearly a male but in mud turtles the tail looks even larger.

>>Another nice save!
>> Clearly a male but in mud turtles the tail looks even larger.

Thanks! Even though you haven't seen Scooter's tail you have me convinced that I was right in the first place, he's a she! That tail is tiny almost unnoticeable.

We have 2 male box turtles and 1 male western painted, all 3 males are aggressive animals. The females including the sulcata are all very docile laid back animals.

When I say aggressive I don't necessarily mean that they want to attack me, it's more about bravery.
They aggressively go for their food, they aggressively go after females if they're near them, they'll aggressively let you know if you are doing something to make them upset. They will aggressively defend themselves when faced by another animal they view as a threat. (a bird, cat)
Our male box who's most wild (not Chip) & the male painted will open their mouths as a warning at the least provocation, none of the females will do that.
The females all sort of take things in stride, calmly but they will show more fear in situations that males would show bravery in.
Scooter behaves like the females & is actually my least aggressive turtle. With that teensy tail & the docile manner she must be female.
Thank you so much for the education. I knew that not all books have accurate info but like I said I have no other turtles to compare Scooter to. I may never have known so much about sexing muds if you hadn't spoken up.
This is great!
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PHRatz

through a war! Nice rescue.
I love to see animals that were surely goners but then got saved somehow.
I found a hatchling striped mud turtle several years ago that was being eaten alive by fire ants. They were all over it's umbilical sac and eyes when I found it staggering across a highway. We washed off the ants in a nearby canal and then brought it home. It was covered in horrible welts and the eyes were really swollen shut. After a couple of weeks the eyes were better and the little thing was pretty much OK. After a month it was perfect again.
A friend still has him.
The box turtle looks like a typical female.

Good for you for saving a mud from fire ants. Although fire ants are in our region we are very lucky that they aren't anywhere around our house...yet.
I hope they never are. I've heard all sorts of horror stories about what they can do. They need to die!

Chip was brought to me at the end of Oct. 2005, if this hadn't happened to him he would've been underground for the winter in another week. The story I got is that a cat rescuer found him in her backyard where she has 3 or 4 large dogs. The woman took him to her vet and that's a vet who doesn't treat turtles. His whole plastron was broken & part of it was missing. One piece was dangling off of him, it looked like a tortilla chip.. that's how he got the name Chip.
I know 2 people who work for the vet who doesn't treat reptiles so they called me & asked if I'd take him. It was a Friday night so we cleaned him up & started to try to put him back together the next day but he began to smell really bad, he was infected. Monday he saw my herp vet & got bandaged up for a week while he took antibiotics, then on Halloween he went in the hospital & was put back together. He was wild but now he's a spoiled brat.
Shell E was dog chewed but not nearly as bad off as Chip. Shell E took 2 years to heal, Chip's vet thinks it will likely take 3 years if not more for him to heal.
If you want to see all the photos of Chip you can click the link at the bottom.
The CB western painted is the only turtle or tortoise I have that I paid money for & brought home on purpose. The rest just happened.
They all saw that sucker tattoo on my forehead. lol
I love it when they make it. It's a challenge for me to rehab them, I like the challenge.
Pet Hobbyist Photo Gallery

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PHRatz

Those turtles sure are fortunate to be alive. Like I said before, nice save(s). I would be like you in that I would pay to have them repaired.

Hard for me to say about male/female boldness. My captive raised female mud turtles are as fearless as can be and will literally swim on their backs if they think I will feed them. But then again, they never offer to bite when held and yet my males will happily bite when annoyed.

>>Those turtles sure are fortunate to be alive. Like I said before, nice save(s). I would be like you in that I would pay to have them repaired.

The cool thing about my vet is that she charges a minimal fee for a wild animal like Chip. To have him repaired I paid for the medications & supplies only. She didn't charge me for her time spent putting him back together so it wasn't a huge amount of money out of my pocket to have him treated. If I hadn't kept him she would have kept him herself. She's a sucker for an injured wild animal and especially a turtle, she's a big turtle/tortoise lover.
>>
>> Hard for me to say about male/female boldness. My captive raised female mud turtles are as fearless as can be and will literally swim on their backs if they think I will feed them. But then again, they never offer to bite when held and yet my males will happily bite when annoyed.

Scooter is fearless with me but not with strangers, the others are sort of fearful around strangers but not as much as Scooter is.

If I bring Scooter a favorite food item she(?) lol will jump up & down like a little kid for it & will take food from my hand too. There's no fear of me after being here for 10 years but around strangers that head is in hiding. Try to bite me or anyone? It's never happened. We can't get that mouth open for nothin' lol.

Scooter got sick in 1998 with parasites & some sort of what the vet thought was a gouty condition, there were some sort of urinary stones that showed up on the x-ray. Scooter had to take medication for a couple of weeks & let me tell you getting that mouth open was a very difficult task.
With box turtles I've often been able to make them open up a mouth for me without much provocation, if that doesn't work I have no problem doing it myself even if I have to pry their mouths open, but with Scooter it took two people to get that mouth open to put medicine in.
That was a really difficult chore!

I guess instead of the word docile I should have used the word timid. My females are more timid, the males strut around like they are king of the Earth, even Chip behaves that way now that he's feeling well again.
I feel like I am not doing a good job of explaining what I mean when I say the males are more brave.... I think it's the strutting the males do that's so different from the females, Scooter doesn't do the strut.
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PHRatz

Usually males of anything are more aggressive for the most part, bold, apt to bite etc.

It's really not that hard to tell male from female muds.