{"id":2656,"date":"2009-04-22T20:15:07","date_gmt":"2009-04-23T01:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2656"},"modified":"2010-01-16T12:24:36","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T17:24:36","slug":"spotted-turtle-spotted-at-goldwitz-bog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2656","title":{"rendered":"Spotted Turtle Spotted at Goldwitz Bog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spotted-5-001-8401\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Male Spotted Turtle (Clemmys gutata)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Meet one of our locals, the spotted turtle <\/strong>(Clemmys gutata),<\/em> better known and identified by the Turtle Journal team as \u00c2\u00a0#5 .\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Number 5\u00c2\u00a0 is an old friend and an inhabitant of\u00c2\u00a0 Marion’s abandoned Goldwitz cranberry bog and\u00c2\u00a0surrounding woodlands, meadows and pools.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Release of Male Spotted Turtle in Goldwitz Bog<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

An 11-year-old male,\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Number 5 drops into\u00c2\u00a0the defunct\u00c2\u00a0cranberry bog each spring in active pursuit of breeding females.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotted turtles\u00c2\u00a0mate during the spring months of March, April and May.\u00c2\u00a0 We found #5 crawling\u00c2\u00a0along the bottom probably looking for companionship.\u00c2\u00a0 In 2006,\u00c2\u00a0we found #5 swimming along the same\u00c2\u00a0area; in 2007, #5 he was basking in the sun on the bank above.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"spotted-5-carapace-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sporting beautiful yellow dots that allow him to blend in perfectly with bog vegetation, #5 has managed to grow from 135 grams in 2006 to 145 grams today.\u00c2\u00a0 His slow growth pattern confirms the small size of this turtle species.<\/p>\n

\"spotted-5-plastron-840\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Males and females are easily distinguished.\u00c2\u00a0 Notice this young male’s large tail,\u00c2\u00a0his concave plastron, and dull brown eyes and chin.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotteds express sexual dichromatism with females having brightly colored chins and orange eyes.\u00c2\u00a0 Females also sport a flat plastron and thin, smaller tail.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotteds tend to be a smaller turtle, growing no larger than 5 inches.<\/p>\n

Over the protest of environmentalists, spotted turtles were delisted in the state of Massachusetts in 2006 although\u00c2\u00a0loss of wetlands habitat seems to be reducing their numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Male Spotted Turtle (Clemmys gutata) Meet one of our locals, the spotted turtle (Clemmys gutata), better known and identified by the Turtle Journal team as \u00c2\u00a0#5 .\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Number 5\u00c2\u00a0 is an old friend and an inhabitant of\u00c2\u00a0 Marion’s abandoned Goldwitz cranberry bog and\u00c2\u00a0surrounding woodlands, meadows and pools. Click Here to View Video in High Quality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2656"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3940,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2656\/revisions\/3940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}