This small Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) was viewed by our class on our trip to the SC Aquarium. This specimen was getting a short bath while we toured the behind the scenes Sea Turtle Hospital. Now I imagine that the kind folks there couldn't say "No" to treating a poor little guy like this who had been presumably hit by a car. Nope, the treated him with all the love and care as they do the sea turtles (Cheloniidae and Dermochelyidae) that frequent their hospital.
This individual is clearly an E. Box Turtle as we can note his highly domed shell, hinges on the plastron, and dark carapace & plastron with reddish/yellow blotches - though this one appears to be a rather dark specimen which doesn't add up to much since the coloration in this species is so variable. I did not want to handle him but judging from the red-pigmented eyes, it is likely that this specimen is a male (females usually have brown eyes). I noted on his medical chart that he was actually ready to be released in mere days! His shell looked rather damaged but was apparently well enough to make his survival a likely one!
His story reminds me of a time last summer where my fiance and I saw a desperate E. Box Turtle attempting to cross a busy highway near Walterboro, SC. We turned the car around and sped to the turtle's rescue. My fiance was driving and like something out of a James Bond movie (...for turtles) he didn't even pull over to pick up the animal! He just opened the driver door, reached down/picked it up and handed her to me, closed the door and we were off! He really impressed me that day with his animal rescuing skills!
We took her to a remote, moist forest in Colleton County, SC near a swamp and released her. I believe she was indeed an adult female due to her size of a full 6 inches, her lighter colored/brownish irises and very flat plastron.
My apologies - I'm no good at formatting...
*Blue bucket: SC Aquarium individual
*Dirt/Forest shots are of the rescued female and said fiance going deep into the woods to release her - yay!
(Channing Derry, SC)
No comments:
Post a Comment