Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found this turtle in the I&M canal south of chicago and was wondering what is up with its scutes and the color?

Can anybody please help?!?!?

Well by the stripe down the back it looks like it has some southern painted turtle blood, but around this area, I'm not too far away just a bit west of Chicago in eastern Iowa, we mainly have western painted turtles. The scutes are just mal-developed and slightly deformed which occures fairly frequently with turtles actually, but it may likely grow up fine and healthy.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

I stand corrected, the midlands occur on the other side of the Mississipi river from me, in Chicago where you are and sometimes they have the weaker dorsal stripe, so they are likely Midland painted turtles.
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Jeff Benfer
gartersnakemorph.com

Scutes: Common enough in both wild and captive hatched turtles. I've heard that it's from irregular (too high?) incubation temperatures, but not certain about that. It's just a cosmetic thing, as far as I know. I've seen lots of adult sliders and a few adult box turtles with extra scutes (one had 21 scutes instead of the normal 13).

As for the ID, I thought western from the carapace color, but the head says midland, so I'd go with midland or an intergrade fo midland and western. What does the plastron look like?

Most of the subspecies have a dorsal stripe in different populations, not just the southerns, although it's usually a weak stripe. Easterns in MD often have a good dorsal stripe.

Katrina