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Originally Posted by JennaPenny  The photo she showed me was that of a extremely common to get, red eared slider.
Haha. Oh my lord. We found our two turtles that way. In a chinese buffet place. We thought, oh, how sweet. A way to get a (tiny) pet so our kids can learn. I'm just glad both hubby and I won't just get a pet just to get one. We researched, and we got tanks to grow with their size right up to the point that bambi (my daughter called the male that, please don't ask me why) and started attacking Tama for refusing to, um, mate with her. We saw shell fragments as well. I had to give her to the herp society and I adored her- she was MY turtle and I was able to handle her. They have some pretty neat personalities. Bambi, lasted for a lot longer, but when our old place was sold, we had a month to leave. we had around a month where we had to do hotel hopping. So he also left to the same place. We suspect he's happily a'humping other turtles. |
Sounds like a softshell turtle to be honest... That's what's mostly in those chinese grocery stores... Bullfrogs, Softshell turtle, rarely diamond back terrapin(not sure if done illegally or what), doubt I'd see a red eared over there but then again, maybe not.... Red eared sliders are extremely prolific and in some areas can get 5 each for a quarter.....
My aunt got my cousin a turtle once in mexico, and he ended up tormenting it by picking it up and playing with it like as if it was a car... ended up dead, was pretty mad at her when I heard her tell me that story...
I know about the male thing, it's pretty easy to tell a male if you've had it for some time because if you ever pick it up the cloaca may pop out and that's an instant way to tell.. you don't have to do anything other than just pick it up by the shell-- only seen it with red eareds though...
These things are bred in such large quantities in some areas if no one accepts them they ended up being culled because of the mass number of them...
They do have neat personalities, and some tolerate handling but no turtle likes to be handled, actually no reptile or amphibian enjoys handling they just tolerate it if anything. Well, good thing they're not like amphibians... amphibians have rather delicate skin and most end up breathing through their skin sort of.. If the pores are plugged I heard they die. Sensitive to chemicals, and stuff -- more so why shouldn't be handled because of the stuff on our hands.
All turtles need large enclosure, even the smallest turtle available in the pet trade which is 3-4 inches long needs a rather sizeable enclosure... I love turtles, but because of that I try not to keep them anymore, not unless I made a pond for them which they would appreciate a lot better, or a big enclosure like that.
Shell fragments? You mean the scutes? They shed those, more so basking turtles than bottom dwellers.