Perry Finn, age 10, of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, for his question:
Can you tell male from female painted turtles?
Certain pet store people daub colors on the shells of pretty little water turtles called sliders. Innocent customers mistake them for honest to goodness painted turtles, which are colorfully decorated by nature. In both cases, you can tell the adult males from the adult females.. But the boy and girl turtles look alike. The little painted or unpainted sliders sold in pet shops usually are juveniles, so there is no way to select a pair of future parents.
The genuine painted turtle enjoys life by a lazy stretch of water. His neighborhood may be a pond, a swamp or a quiet creek choked with thriving waterweeds. As a rule, he shares his lazy days with a group of relatives. On a summer afternoon, if you tread softly, you may spot them sunbathing together on a rock or a log or even floating on tire waterweeds. However, painted turtles are very shy. If they hear you or see you, they dive into the water or scuttle out of sight among the greenery.
Their shyness may explain why so many painted turtles still survive in much of Canada and the United States. For people are tempted to adopt the pretty creatures. They are very handsome and they make gentle pets. But they must be fed in the water and tending them may become a chore. Their chances of surviving are much better in the wild which is what nature intended.
The babies, of course, hatch from soft shelled turtle eggs, round and white. There may be six to twelve in the family group. Their dark skins and olive green shells are decorated with artistic designs in red or yellow or both. The little cuties look like their parents, though some have an extra yellow band down the center of the back. The boys and girls look alike for several years. When the boys become adults, they measure between four and five inches and the claws on their fingers grow about twice as long as the claws on their toes. The girls do not become adults for another year or so. They measure about six inches and the claws on their fingers and toes stay the same length.
Painted turtles wear different designs, depending on where they live. Those that live in the Mississippi Valley tend to slaty gray, with yellow streaks on the skin of head, neck, arms and legs. The edge of the carapace, or top shell, has a border design of yellow and perhaps a few red lines. The plastron, or under shell, is yellow. Eastern painted turtles have more red lines with the yellows. Their western cousins wear the gayest red and yellow designs on the carapace and the plastron is a gaudy patchwork of reds, yellows and tans. In all cases, the boys and girls look exactly alike. But the adult males are smaller than the females and their finger claws are much longer than those on their toes.
The sliders are larger cousins of painted turtles. They also enjoy the water, though the live farther south. As adults, the males also are smaller than the females and have longer front claws. The dainty youngsters have a red spot behind each eye and there is no sensible reason to daub their pretty green shells with false colors. In fact, the paint prevents the delicate shell from growing as it should. The helpless little creatures become deformed so let's refuse to take our business to pet shops that sell falsely painted turtles.