The westernmost population of diamondback terrapins in Massachusetts was discovered by the Turtle Journal team a few years ago in Assonet Bay off the Taunton River in between Freetown and Berkeley. Likely a small remnant or relic population in the now overly developed Taunton River estuary system, these terrapins may number less than 100 in total and have lost all connection with other terrapins along the Massachusetts coastline.
On Monday, the Turtle Journal’s ace reporter and researcher for the Assonet Bay system, Carl Brodeur of Arborcare with Ropes and Saddles, reported that three and a half-year-old Laurie Stonecypher found this adorable 2008 hatchling strolling along the road abutting Assonet Bay. Terrapin hatchlings often spend their first winter burrowed upland rather than entering the salt marsh immediately after emerging from their eggs in the fall. The later in the season the hatchlings are born, the more likely they will remain upland until the next spring.
Hats off to Laurie on her beautiful find. I guess when you’re a turtle researcher it pays to be close to the earth.
May 16th proved a perfect terrapin day in Wellfleet Bay. Skies were clear, the breeze was gentle from the southwest, and the tide was low. Diamondback terrapins, recently emerged from winter slumber, were swimming through the shallows of the tidal flats looking for love. The Turtle Journal team visited the cove between the south shore of Lieutenant Island and the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in waders to conduct a spring population census.
Diamondback Terrapins Released in Lieutenant Island Creek
In ten to fifteen minutes of sampling, we netted 28 terrapins, 17 males and 11 females. Eight of these turtles were recaptures and 20 were seen for the first time. The 17 males proved the largest number of male terrapins from Wellfleet Bay that have been captured in a single event.
 Healed Damaged Carapace of Terrapin #86
Back to female terrapin #86, we scooped her up in water about three inches deep where she was being pursued by a young male about 8 years old. They both were netted together and quickly released after processing to resume their amorous intentions. Looking at her carapace above, you can see where she still shows the effects of a major trauma sustained in the early 1980s when her shell was cracked in an encounter with a vehicle. She’s extremely fortunate to have survived that event and to have avoided another such incident during her twice yearly nesting runs on Lieutenant Island in mid June and early July.Â
Don Lewis Shows #86’s Male Companion to Visitors
We are especially fond of the Grande Dame of Wellfleet’s terrapins because she was captured on June 20th, 1980 as she made a nesting run on Lieutenant Island’s Turtle Point at the very beginning of our Outer Cape terrapin study which began 29 years ago. Back then she was already so mature that her annual growth lines had vanished into history. But many years later when we reconstructed the growth chart of terrapins in Wellfleet Bay, we were able to discern that #86 had been more than 25 years old at her first meeting with researchers in 1980. We have listed her birth year as 1955, even though it is highly probable that she was born closer to 1950. Still, with yesterday’s capture, #86 has set the record for the oldest documented terrapin in Wellfleet Bay at a minimum of 54 years.
Between 1980 when she was first seen and 1985 when next she appeared on a nesting run, she had sustained extreme trauma to her shell with cracks extending from the right rear quarter forward, as well as smaller areas of trauma on left front and back. You can still see the remnants of those wounds on her carapace today. We lost sight of #86 for more than a decade until she appeared on yet another nesting run at Turtle Point in June 2000, one day shy of the 20th anniversary of her first capture. She was seen on other nesting runs in 2001, 2002 and 2004; then disappeared for another five years.
Grande Dame’s Youthful Male Companion Re-enters Water
Yesterday marks the first time she has been captured in the water in an amorous interlude as opposed to on land en route to her nesting site. She is now one of the largest terrapins on the Outer Cape with a straight-line carapace length of 20.55 centimeters and weighing 1610 grams just after emerging from nearly seven months of winter brumation. At a minimum age of 54, #86 is the oldest recorded terrapin in the Wellfleet Bay system. She has done more than her share to maintain the population of this threatened species, despite a near fatal encounter with humans in the early 80s. Clearly, she’s still an attractive turtle and if we are lucky and diligent this season, we’ll see her again around the 19th or 20th of June as she comes ashore at Turtle Point for her first nest of the season.
In a soaking wet springtime, you take sunshine wherever you find it. For Sue Wieber Nourse of the Turtle Journal team, a sunburst of color came in the sweet face of this gorgeous young female spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata) that Sue found swimming in a channel of Goldwitz Bog in Marion on the South Coast of Massachusetts. We have been monitoring this bog and its reptile species for the last half decade, yet Friday morning marked the first time we had found this young lady, now memoralized with the marking of #8 to match her youthful age.Â
Sue Wieber Nourse Examines Young Female Spotted Turtle
We have marveled at the “brilliance” of earlier naturalists who were able to come up with such a clever name for the species (smile). This youngster’s yellow spots were so pure that they seemed as though they were just dabbed onto her dark shell. What appears so gaudy when out of their habitat becomes a key camouflage feature when they return to the safety of the bog and the spots blend perfectly with duck weed and other similar “smears” in the abandoned cranberry bog channels.
Flat Plastron Plus Yellow-Orange Chin and Eyes
Examining her plastron (bottom side) provides an excellent illustration of this species’ sexual dichromatism. From birth, females sport a bright yellow-orange chin coloring and bright yellow-orange around the rim of their eyes, while males have a drab brown-gray coloration. Another indicator of gender is the flat “washboard” abdominals. Males have a concave indentation along the abdominal scutes. Finally, her tail is rather slim and slender, while the male tail is broad and chubby.
After being marked, measured and weighed, Spotted Turtle #8 showed off her sunshine beauty and slipped back into the grayness of another rainy spring day. Within this abandoned bog, she is joined by painted turtles and snapping turtles, as well as a variety of snakes, frogs and toads. A few brave ducks swoop in to rest and feed, and a family of Canada geese with a half dozen goslings have taken temporary residence. Beware of the snappers, young goslings!
Turtle Journal cameras clicked and whirred to the assistance of Massachusetts Marine Educators (MME) on Saturday to document their annual conference at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). This traditional event which gathers together marine educators, formal and informal, from across the state has convened at WHOI for more than three decades.Â
Exhibit Hall Outside Redfield Auditorium @ WHOI
Attendance has trended downward the last few years and continues a bit sluggish with the economic downturn. But enthusiasm for the event remains high among the faithful and a few new faces mixed among the crowd of regulars.Â
National Marine Life Center Exhibit Table
While Sue Wieber Nourse, a past president and current board member of MME, photo-documented the day at the request of the incoming president, Don Lewis spent time advocating for his current project: building a new marine animal hospital at the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay at the gateway to Cape Cod and North America’s most active stranding hotspot. He released a new and compelling video, Mass Stranding (click on title), in support of the NMLC mission to restore life to the ocean. You can see more about the NMLC presentation at the conference at its posting titled NMLC @ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The first speaker of the day, Dr. Scott Doney from WHOI, presented a talk on Climate Change and the Future of the Oceans in the 21st Century. The video clip offers a brief snippet of his 45 minute dissertation, followed by a question and answer session.
After a panel on marine education, Dr. Michael Moore (WHOI) offered a slide presentation on Using Yesterday’s Tools and Techniques to Conserve Today’s Whales. From saving stranded dolphins on Cape Cod to disentangling or necropsying large whales at sea, Michael talked about the lessons we had learned from our historic whaling industry and culture, as well as the precision tools and techniques whalers had perfected in pursuit of their trade that would be the envy of today’s seaborne cetacean scientist.
Dr. Michael Moore Receives His Honorary Cod
Michael and Scott both received the ceramic cod, the traditional speaker’s gift from MME created by Grainger Pottery of Marion, Massachusetts.
Spring finally arrived on the Outer Cape this weekend. Saturday brought bright sunshine and a strong warm southwesterly breeze to Wellfleet with temperatures inching into the 60s. The Turtle Journal team scooted over the tinkertoy Lieutenant Island Bridge at mid-tide falling to inspect salt marsh channels for terrapins burrowing out of winter brumation in the soft, oozy quickmud. It is a rare gift to observe a living head poke out of the “black mayonnaise,” soon followed by the leading edge of the carapace and finally the full turtle as it “swims” through the quickmud to the surface. If you’ve ever wondered why terrapins and terrapin researchers have such perfect youthful complexions, no need to ponder any longer. Look at Terrapin #834 above, a mature female we’ve been documenting for the last decade. Now gander at the post-cleanup shot below that illustrates her wrinkle-free skin!
Same Terrapin after Cleanup
After six months buried under the mud, no question that #834 has a few stories to tell.
Wrong Step Creek
Not too hard to figure out why they call it “Wrong Step Creek.” If you make one wrong step into the creek, it will be the last step you ever take. We find emerging turtles in this creek each springtime. The bottom is pure ooze and offers a warm, comfortable, easy blanket into which turtles submerge each winter to avoid freezing in the Great White North. The black disturbed area in the photograph indicates the spot from which male terrapin #9250 emerged on Saturday.
Emergence of Male and Female Terrapins from Marsh Ooze
The Turtle Journal team brings you into the oozy creeks south of Lieutenant Island to witness a sight that very few humans have ever seen. The video clip begins with the recovery of male terrapin #9250 from a side channel off Wrong Step Creek, then the documentation of female terrapin #834 as she emerges from another side channel. This day marked the first time that we had observed #9250, but we have a long history of encounters with #834.
She’s one of our beauties. Terrapin #834 weighed in at 1220 grams and measured 19.2 centimeters straight-line carapace length on Saturday. She was born in 1988 and spends her life in the estuaries and tidal flats around Lieutenant Island in South Wellfleet.
#834 Emerging in May 2000
We first encountered #834 as she emerged from brumation on May 4th, 2000. She was buried into the bank of North Creek, a stone’s throw from Wrong Step Creek, tail down and head up. If you look closely at the photograph above, you can detect the forward edge of her carapace framing her face. We can’t believe that we actually saw her as we stepped through the Spartina alternaflora. Back then she measured 18.5 centimeters and weighed 1126 grams. Our field school found her nesting on nearby Marsh Road in late June 2001 (the site of the photograph below) and we found her emerging from brumation in mid April 2002 in Wrong Step Creek. #834 was discovered twice more nesting on Marsh Road in 2003 and 2008, before Saturday’s last encounter.
Sue Wieber Nourse Holds the Adorable Couple
Once cleaned up, female #834 (left) and male #9250 (right) make an adorable couple. You can still see the mud caked inside the front limb cavity of #834. For the record, male #9250 weighed in at 284 grams and measured 12.15 centimeters straight-line carapace length.
Gender Dimorphism: Female Bottom, Male Top
The adorable couple, #834 and #9250, offer a perfect illustration of gender (sexual) dimorphism in diamondback terrapins. Both are mature turtles at approximately 95% of maximum size for males and females within the Cape Cod Bay population of terrapins. So, the size comparison of female (bottom) to male (top) is quite accurate.
The most fun part of research is always the release, returning animals to the wild. Sue Wieber Nourse let the adorable couple go at the edge of Black Duck Creek west of the Lieutenant Island Bridge at the mouth of Wrong Step Creek. The wonderful aftermath of turtle tracks etched into the ooze and leading to the bay topped a perfect beginning to the active season of diamondback terrapins in the Land of Ooze.
 Terrapin Tracks to the Bay (Male Left, Female Right)
