Turtle Shedding

A couple weeks ago I spotted 5 turtles (almost certainly Red-eared Sliders except for the right-most one) basking on a rock. One thing a little interesting was that the turtle in the upper left had scutes on its carapace that were peeling.

Though there are diseases associated with peeling scutes, it's generally a common way for water turtles to:

  1. Grow their shell as the turtles themselves grow.
  2. Preserve buoyancy by losing the weight of their old scutes.
A turtle's carapace consists primarily of rib/vertebrate bones, though the outer layer of scutes are made of keratin, similar to our fingernails and toenails. As aquatic turtles grow, their shell grows but their scutes are no longer large enough to cover the enlarging shell. Their solution is to grow new scutes underneath the old ones and then shed the old scutes.

This scute shedding helps keep a turtle streamlined and lighter for swimming in water. Land tortoises don't shed their scutes but instead add a new scute layer underneath their older ones. (I suspect that exposure to sun/wind/rain probably do wear the top layer of scutes down over time, especially given how old some tortoises can get.)

May 5, 2022 at Duke Farms
Photo 197980148, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Northern Watersnake

Image
This April I went to Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge with the hope (among other hopes) of seeing the Northern Watersnakes during mating season. There were 2 problems with this: I think it was slightly late in the season for this. The boardwalk trail where I had seen them in the past was partially closed due to repairs. So although I didn't see any of the 2+ intertwined snakes that I'd seen in the past, but there were still Northern Watersnakes warming themselves in the sun: April 13, 2023 at Great Swamp Photo 272117862, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) And here's another one coming out of the water. April 13, 2023 at Great Swamp Photo 272119139, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Read more

Female Brown-headed Cowbird

Image
Like quite a few birds, this bird is easier to identify when spotted with her significant other ; she's a Brown-headed Cowbird . Due to their tendency to be monogamous plus plain old birds-of-a-feather behavior, I usually see them with prominently brown-headed males around, greatly improving my confidence in IDing them. My understanding is that Brown-headed Cowbirds are the only obligate brood parasites in my area. Obligate brood parasites have essentially lost all their parenting skills, and thus if they were ever unable to fool other birds into raising their young, they would (almost certainly) go extinct [1]. There are, however, other brood parasites in New Jersey. These are called facultative brood parasites, and these birds will usually raise their own offspring, but will also engage in brood parasitism. (Exactly when birds perform facultative brood parasitism seems variable; one source said it occurred when resources were scarce while another said it occurred when resource
Read more

Rooftop Turkey Vultures

Image
I met these Turkey Vultures by just walking out of my apartment. (I theoretically could have gotten a picture without going outside, but that extra layer of glass can degrade picture quality a little.) Although they don't show up on these rooftops daily, they're not an uncommon visitor to my apartment complex. Similar to this spot of the woods , I wouldn't expect this to be a great place to find carcasses. I'm thinking they're here mostly because: They don't have to worry much about predators up there. They get a pretty good view of the area in case something should happen to succumb. (This apartment was near the top of a hill, providing a better view than most of the other apartments.) Since this picture was from February, it's probably a slightly warmer spot, especially near those furnace vent pipes. Although these are Turkey Vultures, it's also not unusual to see Black Vultures up there too. February 28, 2023 at Finderne Photo 264703396, (c) jpviole
Read more