{"id":5105,"date":"2001-05-01T08:23:01","date_gmt":"2001-05-01T13:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=5105"},"modified":"2010-03-09T08:43:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-09T13:43:43","slug":"may-day-%e2%80%94-1-may-2001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=5105","title":{"rendered":"May Day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 1 May 2001"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"05-01-1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Don Lewis Wades in Blackfish Creek Sampling Site<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Warm, clear and beautiful \u00e2\u20ac\u201d summer arrived in the Land of Ooze.\u00c2\u00a0 Water temperatures over the tidal flats rose to 72 degrees by late morning.\u00c2\u00a0 A glorious way to celebrate May Day.<\/p>\n

\"05-01-2<\/a><\/p>\n

Three Female and Two Male Diamondback Terrapins<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Terrapins took full advantage of the moment and criss-crossed Blackfish Creek with the tide.\u00c2\u00a0 While not quite low enough to allow easy capture as they slipped through the rip, still visibility was awfully good and if turtles happened to swim within a few feet, water clarity made it impossible for them to disappear into the muck.\u00c2\u00a0 And five terrapins, three females and two males, made that bad choice of approaching too closely.<\/p>\n

\"05-01-3-4<\/a><\/p>\n

Two Very Interesting Female Terrapins (#322 and #844)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two of the females were recaptures (#322 and #844), while the others were all seen for the first time.\u00c2\u00a0 And very interesting recaptures they proved to be.\u00c2\u00a0 Last May 30th, at 3:30 in the afternoon, these same two turtles were captured in the same location during the same tide.\u00c2\u00a0 Now individual recaptures are not a rarity, but to capture the same two turtles on the identical tide one year apart is a coincidence that stretches odds to the breaking.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

These two terrapins look alike, too.\u00c2\u00a0 Terrapin 322, on the left, is 18.95 centimeters long and weighs 1150 grams; Terrapin 844, on the right, is 18.80 centimeters and 1136 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the shape of their scutes and the\u00c2\u00a0shade of their carapaces are similar.<\/p>\n

Except for the fact that they nest on opposite banks of Blackfish Creek, one on Indian Neck and the other on Lieutenant Island, they could be twins.\u00c2\u00a0 It starts you wondering about the social life of our brackish friends.<\/p>\n

\"05-01-5-6<\/a><\/p>\n

Terrapin #1055 — Protypical Male Diamondback Terrapin<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Terrapin 1055, a six-year-old turtle, demonstrates all the identifying characteristics of a typical mature male.\u00c2\u00a0 And he was kind enough to pose for the camera to illustrate those traits: the smallish \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pin head\u00e2\u20ac\u009d compared with the broader headed female, and the large thick tail compared with the female\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s smaller, thinner tail.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, gender dimorphism with males half the size of mature females is a good indicator, too.\u00c2\u00a0 The challenge comes, though, with distinguishing between mature males and pre-pubescent females of roughly the same size.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Lewis Wades in Blackfish Creek Sampling Site Warm, clear and beautiful \u00e2\u20ac\u201d summer arrived in the Land of Ooze.\u00c2\u00a0 Water temperatures over the tidal flats rose to 72 degrees by late morning.\u00c2\u00a0 A glorious way to celebrate May Day. Three Female and Two Male Diamondback Terrapins Terrapins took full advantage of the moment and […]<\/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\/5105"}],"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=5105"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5114,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5105\/revisions\/5114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}