Yellow Bellied Slider Natural History

For our lab trip on March 26th, our class visited the Dixie Plantation. Although the day started out cloudy and rainy, it turned out to be beautiful and great weather for the time of our trip! We spent the beginning of the trip looking at various amphibians we had caught and then roaming around to try and find anything interesting on our own. Afterwards, we headed a bit deeper into the plantation to check on some turtle traps that had been set out the day before. We ended up finding a female yellow bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta), a common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), and my favorite which was a male yellow bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta).

The individual that we found was a pretty small turtle, around 7-8 inches, that we later identified to be an adult male by its elongated claws and its smaller shell size versus the other yellow bellied slider we found. We could also identify that he was an adult due to the darker coloring of the shell. We found this little guy in a wetland habitat, in the trap located in a small pond. This turtle had a very calm demeanor and had no issues being passed around and held by many members of the class-it did seem a bit startled at first and tried to move its legs to get away, but relaxed shortly thereafter.

This was one of my favorite herps to find this semester, since he was extremely laid back and easy to hold and take photos with! Turtles were one of my favorite animals growing up and this species in particular was always one of my favorites-I always wanted one as a pet, but my mom would never let me! I have seen a few of these guys around various areas of the state, on field trips for other classes and exploring on my own, but it was awesome to get to observe up close and get a chance to hold him!