{"id":6056,"date":"2010-04-27T15:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=6056"},"modified":"2010-04-27T15:14:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T20:14:00","slug":"first-diamondback-terrapin-pair-of-2010-the-adorable-couple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=6056","title":{"rendered":"First Diamondback Terrapin Pair of 2010 — The Adorable Couple"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00c2\u00a0The Adorable Terrapin Couple (Male Left, Female Right)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Temperatures were cool on Saturday, April 24th, hovering in the mid-50s with a sharp breeze blowing off the Atlantic Ocean.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, the sun was shining and with a nothing-ventured, nothing-gained attitude, Turtle Journal waded into Fresh Brook Run south of Lieutenant Island in South Wellfleet in search of emerging terrapins.\u00c2\u00a0 We arrived 90 minutes before low tide and zigzaged through the submerged tidal flats before we spotted our first turtle head snorkeling for air.\u00c2\u00a0 Don netted a mature male terrapin snoozing on the bottom and camouflaged in a mound of seaweed.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue chased down a mature female about a 100 feet away as she swam for safety into deeper, more turbid water.\u00c2\u00a0 Together, they make an adorable couple that perfectly illustrates the gender dimorphism of the species with females twice the linear size of males and nearly four times the mass.<\/p>\n

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12-Year-Old Female Diamondback Terrapin #9055<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This gorgeous 12-year-old female, smiling for the camera, had never been captured before.\u00c2\u00a0 She received the new identification number 9055, so that Turtle Journal can follow her exploits through the years.\u00c2\u00a0 She measured 18.05 centimeters straight-line carapace length and 16.4 cm plastron length with a mass of 1087 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 She had mating scars on her 5th (rear) vertebral and also sported a split nuchal scute.<\/p>\n

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8-Year-Old Male Diamondback Terrapin #9056<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The handsome 8-year-old male had also\u00c2\u00a0never been seen before.\u00c2\u00a0 He received the number 9056.\u00c2\u00a0 He measured 11.4 centimeters straight-line carapace length and 9.6 cm plastron length with a mass of 245 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 This fellow had raised rear marginal and sported a broad, striped tail.<\/p>\n

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Release of the Adorable Couple into Wellfleet Bay<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the afternoon chill, neither turtle moved too swiftly on release.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually, after more than five minutes, the female began to trudge into the surf toward Wellfleet Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 The male, who Don had\u00c2\u00a0found snoozing on the bottom, refused to budge and waited for the tide to come to him!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0The Adorable Terrapin Couple (Male Left, Female Right) Temperatures were cool on Saturday, April 24th, hovering in the mid-50s with a sharp breeze blowing off the Atlantic Ocean.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, the sun was shining and with a nothing-ventured, nothing-gained attitude, Turtle Journal waded into Fresh Brook Run south of Lieutenant Island in South Wellfleet in search […]<\/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\/6056"}],"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=6056"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6077,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions\/6077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}