Monday, June 13, 2011

Flowers with Box Turtle

Do you know how to determine the sex of an Eastern  box turtle? (Sounds like a gotcha question or the lead-in to a joke, doesn't it?)

There are several indicators (see this link ) but the easiest is eye color -- red or orange for the gents and brown for the ladies.
Now to decide which color we have here . . .

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21 comments:

JJ Roa Rodriguez said...

nice pics...

another lessoned learned...

JJRod'z

Brian Miller said...

do you happen to know why they take to the roads after it rains? we see a lot of these up here...

Vicki Lane said...

Since they are burrowing critters, Brian, I guess they get flooded out of their homes when there's a hard rain so they go looking for a new dry home. I spend a lot of time stopping and moving them out of the road.

Jean Baardsen said...

Tough call on the eye color....

Margaret said...

Your header photo is spectacular! Lately we have "saved" a number of little turtles while driving the back roads - even one in town by the railroad tracks... Can't twill the eye color - it looks golden...

BB said...

I'll stick to checking out the color of the flowers. You can get close enough to check the color of the eyes. It's still a reptile. Yuck!

Unknown said...

Cute turtle. Great pics.

Desiree said...

Fascinating!

Callie Brady said...

Lovely flower photos. Cute turtle... I haven't seen any turtles around here. Calfie is darling! Love the photo of your Mom with the bow... I have some of my Mom with a large bow like that.

Stella Jones said...

Really interesting about the turtles. I had never seen one in the wild til I went to Tennessee and then I became fascinated with them.

Wayfarin' Stranger said...

For me, the shape of the plastron has been easiest. Since the eye colors aren't pink and blue, I can never remember which is which. But relating form and function, I can always remember which has the concave plastron and which has the flat one. Jim

Thérèse said...

I am wondering if there is a link/analogy with birds too... Yesterday I encountered a black pig but couldn't see the color of his eyes though I tried hard!

Christine said...

Wonderful photos Vicki. I do believe your box turtle is a male. When I clicked on the photo to make it bigger, it's eye was definitely an orange tone. These are such wonderful little critters, I find them in my yard all the time.

Anonymous said...

We always move the turtles out of the road, too, but sometimes I wonder if I'm moving them the right direction, since I'll find a turtle near the same place the next time I go out our road, sometimes. I always just put them in the direction they seem to be heading, of course.

We now have a resident box turtle near the path I take behind the studio into the woods. It makes my heart smile when I see it. Next time I'll look at the eyes, since I don't know what the plastron is.

Deana the Queena

100 Thoughts of Love said...

turtles are alright with me...snakes, not so much! Eyes look a bit orange to me!

Kristen Haskell said...

I love turtles. I couldn't tell what his/her eye color was. I never knew that...so interesting.

Vicki Lane said...

The plastron is the belly plate of the turtle -- concave on the male and flat on the female to facilitate breeding.

Kath said...

Love turtles. Gave myself a dandy case of salmonella poisoning when I made Jim stop the car so i could pick up a large turtle and carry him off the road, in the direction he had been headed. Wash those hands. And love those turtles.

Vicki Lane said...

Dang! I never thought about that. And I carry them out of the road often. I keep hand cleaner in the car -- I'll remember to use it after a turtle rescue.

Anonymous said...

painter_in_oils_925@yahoo.com email me their

know how i tell them apart is by the bottom of their shells if it has a dented in spot its a male turtle if its half way flat or even all the way flat on the bottom its a female turtle i can't go by the eye color because its not always true i have one with orange eyes and its a female

Anonymous said...

Mike: you know what the laws for these turtles aren't for the turtles safety any turtles i find i take them because im sick of seeing them dead in the roads even on the side of the road the people who made the law made it so they can make easy money
they don't care about the turtles if they did they would do something about all these cars smashing them for the fun of it it pisses me off i have 8 turtles one layed an egg i say who ever sees any turtles take them because soon they wont have a home because all of the building that keeps going on running them out of their homes like the deer that laws not doing a damn thing to help the box turtles here i think the best thing to do is to take the turtles home