11 replies to this topic

[bleecker]

This is Ted and Squirt. I assume they are Eastern Painted Turtles... Are these two the same species?
Thanks.

Oops! Heres the pic

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[justatwinturbo]

We'll need pictures of the plastrons and heads...also, can you post larger pictures? They're pretty hard to see from this one.

Edited by justatwinturbo, 15 December 2011 - 08:39 PM.

[bleecker]

justatwinturbo, on 15 December 2011 - 08:37 PM, said:

We'll need pictures of the plastrons and heads...also, can you post larger pictures? They're pretty hard to see from this one.

Thanks for the reply, I'll post more/larger photos soon...

[bleecker]

Having trouble with the other 2 photos. This is Ted.

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[bleecker]

Ok, this is Squirt. I believe they are both Eastern Paints. But there is a difference in there Carapace. Squirt's scutes are in straight lines across the shell and Teds are a bit staggered.
Thanks.

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[clemmysnut]

I'm having a hard time seeing the scute alignment across the carapace, but if its like you say, then Squirt is an eastern painted and Ted is a midland painted turtle.

[bleecker]

Thanks, here's is a bigger pic of the carapace.

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[justatwinturbo]

They both look like they may come from an area of intergration, neither of them line up very much like an eastern, but they're not so far off either. The one has some retained and overlapping scutes so its hard to be certain.

[bleecker]

Thanks, until recently I didn't know we had Midland Paints this far north and east. We have tons of wild Paints up here. Next year I'll have to look closer through my binocs...
Thanks again.

[ausage]

The range for Painted Turtles extends up into Canada. Midland Painted are very common across Southern Ontario and I believe Eastern Painted range across Southern Quebec.

[Cheloniphile]

Jumping in on this a little late, but...

Eastern x Midland integrades are very common throughout the Northeast primarily due to the pet trade.  I see them as far east as the Cape Cod area.  When released by well-meaning pet owners, it seems that they quickly fit into the C. picta populations and add their sub-specific genes to the available pool.  Another identifier of the picta x marginata integrade is the "ghost" markings on the plastron.  Easterns tend to have almost exclusively yellow plastrons, midlands have dark to shadowy markings which are usually mirror imaged on left and right sides.  Intergrades frequently lack the mirroring effect with the markings appearing more random and very, very faint.

Eastern x midland integrades are increasingly common in the wild in Ohio, Indiana, Western NY, and Western PA where the ranges of the two subspecies almost overlap.  My experience on the east coast is that the painted turtle is the most commonly wild caught turtle - on golf courses, near fishing ponds, and even walking down the street as females search for nesting areas.  It's not hard in the near-overlap areas to assume that a wild caught midland or eastern could be carried a few hundred miles by vacationing families before being released in the neighboring species' range.  I think that is the type of thing that is contributing to the increasing intergrade area in the mid-western areas.

A nice photo comparing the 4 sub-species of C.picta and a map showing more original intergrade regions can be seen on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia..../Painted_turtle.  This is actually a pretty nice, somewhat scholarly and well-cited article.

Paul (Cheloniphile)

Edited by Cheloniphile, 26 January 2012 - 01:21 PM.

[turtle32]

some sort of painted turtle. both are very cute. nice turtles.