| Created: | June 6th, 2017 - 05:37 PM |
|---|---|
| Last Modified: | November 3rd, 2017 - 01:04 PM |
| Entered by: |
Mitchell Rapp |
| Record # | 129607 |
| County: | Armstrong County |
|---|---|
| Time: | 2017-06-06 00:00:00 |
| Qty: | 1 |
| Age: | -- |
| Sex: | -- |
| Air Temperature: | ----- |
| Cloud Cover: | ----- |
| Weather Conditions: | ----- |
| Elevation: | 1027.00ft |
| Habitat: | ----- |
Great Tom! that would be a pretty cool record to see on here i always did like comparative shots.
Andy (& Brandon & Mitchell), As I mentioned the other day I have photos of an adult Yellow-bellied Slider that I caught in 1980 in the "Duck Pond" in State College, Centre County. I also caught a Red-eared here at the same time. I have a good comparative shot of the plastron differences. I'll submit these observations one of these days....
Andy Thanks for the info! i always wondered how you could tell if it didn't have a red ear like a older mature adult sometimes don't.
Oh! I must have missed that one from 03!! I was unaware they had been found of this side. I hope they are not spreading like the red ears.
Brandon: In this melanistic individual you can tell from the plastron. This individual only has dark blotches on the anterior-most (gular) plastral scutes, which is common in yellow-bellies. Red-ears would likely have a dark blotch on each plastral scute. There are some other subtle differences but this is what makes me confident it's a yellow-belly. Since you brought it up, just FYI but I have a record of a yellow-belly from Allegheny County from 2003.
Not to go off topic but how can you tell difference from red ear and yellow belly? Pretty interesting find as far as i know this is the only yellow belly in western pa to be found.
This was the first record that I clicked on when I got home from work! Haha! It looks like this is the first yellow-bellied slider from Armstrong County!
Tom Pluto, Andy Weber, thanks for correcting that I don't come across turtles very often and I am not the best at identifying them.
Andy! You beat to the comments by one minute (it's 5:57 PM right now)!! Yes, Mitchell I concur with Andy. This a confusing one, however. Your specimen has a keel; adult female Maps do not. What convinced me that it wasn't a Map Turtle was the head shot. As Andy said, still an interesting find.
I think this is actually a melanistic yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta). Still an interesting find!