Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I usually hang around in the lizard and snake forums but tonight this little fellow landed in my housemates hands.

I have no idea of the age or background of this. Some of the green colourings of the flash have been stripped making it look a bit more yellow than it is.

Does anyone have any ideas on what species this is? Also I the eyes dont took good to me. I`m not sure if you can see properly from the photograh but they are both like this, they seem closed up and have a bubble over them.

I'm not good with these basking turtles, but I can tell you that it's a cooter of some sort. Where is it from? Nowadays, with people releasing pet turtles in areas where they're not native you will see a lot of hybridization. Giving the location would help someone nail down the exact species. I can tell you one thing, this turtle looks sick. They're usually very energetic little guys. You might want to contact a vet that's experienced with turtles.

Hi thanks for getting back, after looking at a few pictures I think you could be right about it being a cooter of some sort, it has a yellow belly not red though.

I am in the UK so it would have been captive bred, but I have no information on where it came from. The basic story is, my housemate runs a Girl Guide unit and last night someone approached the unit and offered it to them as a pet. My housemate being a sucker for 20 kids pestering and asking can we keep it said yes on the basis that she knew nothing about them and since I keep reptiles I would know what to do with it. So now here I am trying to find out how to take care of it!! I`m not completely without knowledge though, I used to have a couple of red eared sliders when I was a teenager.

I am very worried about the eyes though. It was quite stressed last night after being poked by the kids in the unit but after leaving it over night in a quiet spot it has come to life a bit more this morning, but the eyes still have what looks like a bubble of some sort over them.
I know quite a good vet whose got reasonable experiance with herps close by so I`m will have to try and get it down to him.

Thanks.

A Hieroglyphic River Cooter (Pseudemys concinna hieroglyphica). It does seem to have a nasty eye infection.

I had a turtle a few years ago and she got sick. Her eyes looked EXACTLY like that. My father took her to a vet and since I wasn't there I don't know all that the vet said, but I do know for sure that he gave her a shot. I am guessing it is an infection and the shot maybe was some sort of antibiotic. You do need to take her in though; she will not get better on her own. You are probably having a hard time getting her to eat too just because she can't see. I used tweezers to hold the food close to her mouth (she was a baby).