{"id":8476,"date":"2011-03-18T15:52:43","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T20:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8476"},"modified":"2012-03-14T16:15:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T21:15:05","slug":"first-spotted-turtle-of-2011-field-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8476","title":{"rendered":"First Spotted Turtle of 2011 Field Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spotted<\/a><\/p>\n

Sue Wieber Nourse Examines Male Spotted Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As sure as Saint Patrick drove snakes from the Emerald Isle, as sure as spring equinox\u00c2\u00a0arrives each year\u00c2\u00a0once rivers of\u00c2\u00a0green beer runs dry,\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0few days of sunshine and 50-degree weather will produce the first basking spotted turtle at Brainard’s Marsh on the South Coast of Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 (See\u00c2\u00a0Spotted Turtle and Wood Frog Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day<\/a>, March 18, 2011)<\/p>\n

\"painteds<\/a><\/p>\n

Large Female Painted Turtles Basking at Local Bog<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

During\u00c2\u00a0the last week we’ve seen painted turtles decorating rocks at our local bogs and on the floating platform at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0 Yesterday, Sue spied two small juvenile spotted turtles sunning on the far, unapproachable\u00c2\u00a0banks of the pond at Brainard’s Marsh.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"spotted<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Turtle (Clemmys Guttata)\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So, this morning Sue\u00c2\u00a0came to Brainard’s Marsh ready for action\u00c2\u00a0with a long handled (10 foot) net to snag this handsome dude basking on the bank and\u00c2\u00a0to kick off the Turtle Journal’s local research season.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotteds are an extremely elusive\u00c2\u00a0small fresh water turtle.\u00c2\u00a0 For sizing, note the oak leaf in the photograph above with the mature male spotted turtle.<\/p>\n

\"spotted<\/a><\/p>\n

Carapace of Male Spotted Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This 12-year-old male measured 11.6 centimeters (~ 4.5 inches) straight-line carapace length and 8.7 centimeters (3.4 inches)\u00c2\u00a0maximum straight-line width.<\/p>\n

\"spotted<\/a><\/p>\n

Plastron of Male Spotted Turtles<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

His plastron measured 9.7 centimeters (3.8 inches) long with a nice male concavity and thick tail.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\"spotted<\/a><\/p>\n

Male Spotted Turtle at Brainard’s Marsh<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our lad hit the scales at 211 grams (7.4 ounces) and didn’t need to be marked because he had natural nicks at the 2000 suture and\u00c2\u00a0in the 3 marginal.\u00c2\u00a0 Some future St. Patrick’s Day researcher may\u00c2\u00a0be\u00c2\u00a0flummoxed by finding a turtle marked as #2003 in a tiny fresh water pond.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps, that future researcher will be clever or lucky enough to attritube those marks to a pint (or two) of green beer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sue Wieber Nourse Examines Male Spotted Turtle As sure as Saint Patrick drove snakes from the Emerald Isle, as sure as spring equinox\u00c2\u00a0arrives each year\u00c2\u00a0once rivers of\u00c2\u00a0green beer runs dry,\u00c2\u00a0a\u00c2\u00a0few days of sunshine and 50-degree weather will produce the first basking spotted turtle at Brainard’s Marsh on the South Coast of Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 (See\u00c2\u00a0Spotted Turtle and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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\/8476"}],"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=8476"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8517,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8476\/revisions\/8517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}