{"id":8767,"date":"2011-04-13T16:01:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T21:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8767"},"modified":"2011-04-13T16:41:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T21:41:22","slug":"rufus-meets-male-spotted-turtle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=8767","title":{"rendered":"Rufus Meets Male Spotted Turtle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Rufus Retriever Meets Male Spotted Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Turtle Journal’s Sue Wieber Nourse and Rufus Retriever visited the Goldwitz abandoned cranberry bog on Tuesday.\u00c2\u00a0 On Sunday, they had found a female spotted turtle basking on the bank of a bog channel at Goldwitz.\u00c2\u00a0 Since then, the weather had deteriorated\u00c2\u00a0into a\u00c2\u00a0chilly overcast\u00c2\u00a0with spitting rain.\u00c2\u00a0 No self-respecting turtle would be caught dead or alive basking in such un-turtle-like conditions.<\/p>\n

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Spotted Turtle Hides in Plain Sight<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As\u00c2\u00a0they\u00c2\u00a0walked along the\u00c2\u00a0bog looking for turtles, salamanders, frogs and toads,\u00c2\u00a0Sue’s eyes caught an anomaly at the bottom of the channel.\u00c2\u00a0 She stopped, stared and confirmed that a spotted turtle was lying underneath.\u00c2\u00a0 (Take a look at the photograph above.\u00c2\u00a0 Can you see the turtle\u00c2\u00a0hiding in plain sight?\u00c2\u00a0 When you think you have identified the spotted turtle in the picture,\u00c2\u00a0click\u00c2\u00a0on the image and the solution will appear in a new window.)\u00c2\u00a0 Sue slipped down the bank, plunged into the\u00c2\u00a0water and\u00c2\u00a0grabbed the turtle in her bare hands.\u00c2\u00a0 Rufus skidded down the bank,\u00c2\u00a0jumped in the water and played.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Male Spotted Turtle Drab Neck<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue had captured Male Spotted Turtle #7, whom Don Lewis had first captured on May 7th, 2007 as he basked on the banks of this same channel.\u00c2\u00a0 Back then, he was recorded as older than 11 years, he measured 11.39 centimeters straight-line carapace length, and he weighed 189 grams.\u00c2\u00a0 The next time Spotted #7 was seen occurred on March 27, 2008, when he again basked\u00c2\u00a0on the same bank\u00c2\u00a0in 40 degree sunshine.\u00c2\u00a0 Notice the drabness of his neck which contrasts with the colorful female Sue captured on Sunday (see below).<\/p>\n

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Spotted Turtle Male Tail<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another indicator of #7’s maleness is his tail.\u00c2\u00a0 Note it is considerably thicker than Sunday’s female (see below), and also note that the anal opening falls significantly beyond the edge of his carapace.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, contrast with the female tail below.<\/p>\n

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

This April\u00c2\u00a0Spotted Turtle #7 measured 11.45 centimeters straight-line carapace length, 8.5 centimeters maximum carapace width, and 8.1 centimeters wide along the suture between the first and second costals.\u00c2\u00a0 He weighed 194 grams.<\/p>\n

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Male Spotted Turtle Plastron Concavity<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This plastron photograph illustrates all of his male attributes: the drably colored neck, the thick tail and significant concavity posterior of the bridge.\u00c2\u00a0 Spotted #7 measured 8.5 centimeters straight-line plastron length along the central suture and 5.7 centimeters wide behind the bridge.<\/p>\n

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Rufus Say Farewell to Male Spotted Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After recording morphometric data and examining the health of Spotted Turtle #7, Sue released him back into the bog channel … with a lot of health\u00c2\u00a0from Rufus the Turtle Dog who escorted Lucky Seven back into the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rufus Retriever Meets Male Spotted Turtle Turtle Journal’s Sue Wieber Nourse and Rufus Retriever visited the Goldwitz abandoned cranberry bog on Tuesday.\u00c2\u00a0 On Sunday, they had found a female spotted turtle basking on the bank of a bog channel at Goldwitz.\u00c2\u00a0 Since then, the weather had deteriorated\u00c2\u00a0into a\u00c2\u00a0chilly overcast\u00c2\u00a0with spitting rain.\u00c2\u00a0 No self-respecting turtle would […]<\/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\/8767"}],"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=8767"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8806,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8767\/revisions\/8806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}