Turtle Diaries

[dreamshark]

Bucky the turtle continues to thrive. She's living in an aquarium in the backyard where she gets maybe 3 hours of sun a day for basking. She's never been exactly cowed by people, but she's definitely getting tamer. According to online info, hatchlings of her species are almost entirely carnivorous. As their growth slows they become gradually more omnivorous (e.g., eating more plant material in addition to insects, fish, and anything else that happens to fall in the water and die). Bucky is at least a couple of years old, but still seems to be in the carnivorous stage. She gobbles up worms and bits of raw meat. She's not very interested in bugs with hard shells, at least when she has softer meat to eat. So far she's shown no interest in fruit or vegetable matter, or even in fish food. The turtle we had when the kids were little was happy to eat fish food, so this may just be a matter of preference for Bucky. As long as she has juicy worms and bits of kielbasa, she turns up her nose at dry food.



Bucky is a western painted turtle, 3-1/2" to 4" long. Judging from her size and the rings on her shell, I think she's two or three years old. Here's a nice top picture that shows her size. Note the rings around the edges of the scutes (the individual scales on the carapace). Supposedly, each ring represents a year of growth. Turtle shells grow from underneath. The new scutes form underneath the old ones, and then the old ones peel off the top. The rings show where the new scute has grown larger than the one it's replacing.

Comments

I swear it's not emoticons

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Because I want to see pictures of a turtle, because I think turtles are cool, hopefully this will help.

1. right click on picture and pick "properties"

2. Copy everything after "location:"

3. (img src="url of picture"), except replace parentheses with carrots. ( = < and ) = >

Re: I swear it's not emoticons

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Um, can you see the picture now? I can.

Re: I swear it's not emoticons

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Took a look at Churchy, which I've decided to rename "Turtle", just cuz, and I can't make out any rings. Her rings aren't as distinct as Bucky's, so I've no idea how old she is*.

We otta set up a play-date for the two of 'em, so we can figure out how old mine is.
_____
*She wasn't too pleased, maybe because of the earlier sudden invasion of cat-butt...