A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Pseudemys concinna
This turtle was spotted in a swamp tour northeast of New Orleans. Per comments below, this turtle does not exactly fit at least 2 possibilities. We are going with the best choice.
Swamp northeast of New Orleans.
Spotted on Oct 15, 2014
Submitted on May 23, 2015
4 Comments
My normal go to for turtles doesn't get on PN much anymore, but maybe someone else will have an opinion :)
I will go with your recommendations. Thanks, as always!
And this should be in the reptiles category :)
Yellow-bellied sliders don't occur in LA, and they have a large yellow blotch behind the eye. I'm having a tough time with this one though. The shell looks like a slider, but I can't see the red on the head like I should be able to. Not all red-eareds have the red on the head, but when they lose the red, they also lose the yellow striping with it as they get older. But he has very clear yellow on the head. The head looks like a river cooter (Pseudemys concinna), but the shell should be more domed and the pattern on the shell isn't right, though they can occasionally have more stripes like that than oscellations. If I had to pick one, I would go with river cooter, but I'm by no means certain of that. It's one of those two though.