Natural History of the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata)

    A cool herp I encountered is the Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata) during spring break on 3/4/2023. Spotted Turtles are generally very small (carapace is usually between 3-5 inches). They are smooth and black with several yellow, and sometimes a few orange, spots on their shells, heads, and limbs. Each individual has a unique spot pattern. This was a very lucky day because Spotted Turtles are considered endangered by the IUCN Red List. Due to this, I won't share their exact location. I'd never seen these in the wild before this encounter!

    This was particularly exciting because there were several individuals in this locality. I spotted (no pun intended) about 17 individuals in one day of various life stages. This population was inhabiting a very random pocosin, which is a freshwater wetland area surrounded by evergreen trees and shrubs. Spotted Turtles usually inhabit swamps, marshes, woodland streams, and wet pastures, so this made sense. They tend to avoid deep, open water. I noticed that they were mostly found around areas with lots of aquatic vegetation and sticks. Spotted Turtles are most active during early spring, so this was the ideal time to find them! 🐢🌞

    I was stoked to find a juvenile. This means that the population is doing well enough to be reproducing. This individual is likely around 2 years old- it's far too small to be an adult, but not as small as a neonate hatchling. Since it's so young, this individual could not be reliably sexed. Like many other turtle species, juveniles tend to resemble tiny versions of adult females. A sexually mature female would have a flat plastron, short and thin tails with the cloaca close to the body, and yellow to orange irises. In contrast, males would have concave plastrons, longer and thicker tails with the cloaca further away to house their penis, and dark brown irises. 

I love that little face...

    This juvenile turtle was very shy at first but ended up having a sassy attitude. I found it casually swimming just under the surface of the water, as it couldn't see me from there. Similarly, many of the adults were also actively hunting in the water. However, basking individuals would spot me from several feet away and retreat to the underwater leaf litter. This juvenile had a chunk missing from one of the marginal scutes, and so did many of the adults. Theoretically, this could be because most individuals had orange spots on the sides of their heads and on the rear end of their carapace, which could be confusing to a bird or other predator.

Check out the chunk missing from this kid's scute!

    Overall, I'm super grateful to have had this experience and wish it was more commonplace to see Clemmys guttata in the wild. During and after this encounter, it was bittersweet. Although it was thrilling to find a seemingly persistent population, it was emotionally difficult to consider that they may not be around much longer due to anthropogenic faults such as pollution, vehicular mortalities, habitat destruction, and poaching. 

Natural History of the Eastern Ribbon Snake

Our first herpetology field trip took our class to the Caw Caw Interpretive Center.  Everyone seemed to have a good time wading through swamps, catching critters and seeing a Copperhead snake that had been hiding underneath a log.  The day was warm and the area was swampy, so I expected to find many amphibians out and about to catch and identify.  However, along with the many salamanders that we caught in the traps, we were also able to capture two Eastern Ribbon snakes!

As soon as we found them, it became clear that they were non-venomous, and either Garter or Ribbon snakes.  After consulting our handy field guides, we decided that they were Ribbon snakes, or Thamnophis sauritus.  We decided this because of the placement of the lateral line on the snake.  It was located on the third and fourth row of scales (counting up from the bottom), rather than the second and third, which would have told us that it was a Garter snake.

The first one that we found was the larger of the two and seemed to be an adult, based on its length.  However, the smaller one was not yet long enough to be with the average range of this specie's length.  It was probably a juvenile.  The smaller one was also pretty badly hurt.  It had a gaping wound in its side about halfway down, and was missing some skin in other places.  It looked as if something had tried to make it a meal. 

Although we did not attempt to identify the sex of the snakes, the females of this species tend to be larger than the males.  Both of the snakes were very active.  The larger one was caught in a trap that had been set the day before, but the smaller one was spotted, and then had to be corralled with nets until it was picked up by a brave student.  While holding them, they kept trying to get away or hide by climbing up our arms, under our sleeves.  They seemed to be more active than other snakes that we have held, but that could be because they were wild and the others had been handled by humans before. 

The Eastern Ribbon snake is located along the East Coast in the U.S., but it is especially abundant in the Southeast. All of South Carolina is included in its range, except for the very southern tip of the state. 

All in all, this was definitely and fun and successful herpetology field trip!!


Conant, Roger and Joseph T. Collins (1998).  Garter, Ribbon, and Lined Snakes:  Genus Thamnophis and Tropidoclonion.  In A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eatern and Central North America (pp. 310-324).  New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

WANTED: A Sweet Escape

Hiding from the paparazzi, the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) was in its shell and facing the wall of its cage in the Aquarium. The environment reproduced for the animal was a sandy forest floor with pine tree trunks and other forest floor debris (pine needles, bark, etc.). The carapace looks slightly smooth but the grooves are still visible, therefore this tortoise is probably a mature adult but is quite young, compared to other gopher tortoises, though the sex is elusive. But I wonder if the sandy floor provided is deep enough for the tortoise to burrow and makes tunnels or if the sandy floor is just that, a floor. If this latter statement is true, then the aquarium should look into rearranging this exhibit and allowing for the tortoise to burrow and have the tunnels displayed, much like the display of the ground hog or other fossorial creatures. I am also curious about the position of the tortoise and I wonder if this is normal or if maybe the veterinarians should take a look at this tortoise.

Greater Siren No More

The muck and the anaerobic water sucked on my boots as I walked through the swampy water to get to the trap. As I untied the trap from the tree stump erected from the water I noticed a large black body, about a foot and a half, in the trap. I couldn't really see what it was and as I freed the trap from the grass I noticed an eel like body and I immediately thought of a two-toed amphiuma but upon further inspection I saw that the limbs were further developed and had four digits and that there were no hind limbs. This fact led me to believe that the animal caught was in fact a siren and from the speckling and the large body I deduced that it was the Greater Siren, Siren lacertina. From the size of the siren, it was most likely an adult. I can tell that the greater siren is paedomorph because it still has external gills, a larval trait which has been retained in adult form. As an aside, I could also deduce that the siren was dead because it was not moving at all as I moved the trap form the three feet deep water I was standing in to the shore of the swamp.

Many stumps of dead trees surrounded the site where I gathered the siren. There were many logs on the ground in the water and there was long grass surrounding the area. The trek out to the trap began easily but then the mud became very thick and kept sucking my boots down further as I pushed of the ground to propel myself towards the trap. For a swamp area, there were not many bugs but there were many frogs in the background communicating. The spot where the tap sat in the water was also quite shady for such a sunny day. -----(Joshua Dillon, SC)