11/21/2023 0 Comments Pond sliderHowever, American-bred sliders are being supplied to the pet trade in Europe and Asia, where some have been released to the wild. In their native land, these turtles fill a role of herbivore and mid-level carnivore. Individuals overwinter underwater buried in the mud or under a cut bank. They are often seen moving about on land, especially males moving between ponds and females searching for nesting sites. Sometimes a log is covered with many basking sliders.Īt night, red-eared sliders will sleep while resting on the bottom or floating on the water's surface. ![]() On sunny days, basking in the sun on logs or other objects projecting from the water begins in midmorning and generally lasts until midafternoon. ![]() A population of sliders studied in cooler climates in northeastern Missouri were active from late April to the middle of September. Through most of Missouri, this turtle becomes active in March, when the air temperature reaches 50☏ or higher, and it remains active until mid-October. Red-eared sliders living in the Mississippi River prefer slow, muddy habitats. This turtle lives in both natural waters (including rivers, sloughs, and oxbow lakes) and human-made waters (such as ditches, ponds, and reservoirs). The red-eared slider occurs in a wide variety of aquatic habitats, but it prefers a mud bottom, plenty of aquatic plants, and abundant basking sites. Many of them have limited distributions, which can help with identifications. Other aquatic and semiaquatic relatives include painted turtles, the western chicken turtle, map turtles, and Blanding's turtle. Missouri has several native members of the pond and box turtle family the red-eared slider is one of the most common and widespread in our state. Efforts to remove this slider subspecies are being taken to reduce impacts to native turtles of Missouri. It appears that most of these yellow-bellied sliders were released pets. The plastron is mostly yellow with black spots along the edges. It lacks the red "ear" marking and somewhat resembles the eastern river cooter. scripta), a subspecies that is native to southeastern states but is not native to Missouri, is increasingly being found in Missouri, especially at high public use conservation lands. It is distinguished by a yellow, typically Y-shaped mark behind each eye, and by the lower shell, which is normally yellow it may either lack dark markings completely or have gray-brown markings along the scute seams, especially toward the front. Similar species: The similar-looking eastern river cooter occurs in the southern half of the state. This condition is known as melanism and is associated with old males. Old individuals sometimes have an excess of black pigment that obscures most of the yellow stripes on the shell and skin and the red stripe behind the eye. A wide red or orange stripe is present on each side of the head behind the eye. The exposed skin is dark green with narrow black and yellow lines. The plastron (lower shell) is yellow, with each scute (shell scale) normally having a large dark brown or black blotch. The carapace (upper shell) is olive brown with numerous black and yellow lines. ![]() The red-eared slider is a medium-sized aquatic turtle with a patch of red on each side of its head.
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