Saturday, April 01, 2006

Texas Yellow Mud Turtle

This is my Texas Yellow Mud Turtle. It is about four inches long. It is a pretty neat little turtle. I have it in the ten gallon tank which has tropical fish also. The small mud turtles do not seem to be very fast when it comes to hunting fish, so the tropical fish seem to mostly survive in the tank. I have a variety of fish. Glass shrimp, neons, mollies, guppies, zebra danios, a red-tail barb, and I had a catfish but it looks like it was eaten by the turtles.

The Texas Mud Turtle has a sort of mustard color. It is named a Yellow Mud Turtle because the skin on its neck is sort of yellowish. It is different from the standard Mud Turtles that I have gotten in the past.

It also seems to be more shy and thoughtful. That may sound silly, but this turtle will look around and turn her head at things. The little turtle seems to be thinking about what to do. Too bad turtles can't talk, it would be interesting to hear what it is thinking about.

She has a very short tail, so she is a female turtle. My child has named all the turtles but I don't remember this one's name. This little turtle also seems to enjoy looking at its own reflection in the glass of the aquarium. When I see the turtle doing that, it reminds me of that song by Siouxie and the Banshees (Through the Looking Glass). The larger turtles in the other aquarium are used to looking through the glass. They can see me when I walk by, and they start sticking their heads out of the water and paddling when they want food. I guess it must be weird to be a turtle in an aquarium looking out at people walking by.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool Blog man. Enjoyed it ! I'm setting up a blog 2 about tropical fish (working on it :))

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

I like the images of your turtle. I seldom see this sort of turtle at half the world away from US. In my country, there are only red-ear sliders.

Please may I include the images of your turtle in a write up i am doing?

Please see my blog if you are looking for samples of my works.
http://www.aquariumlore.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

hello:
i have the same exact turtle, it a really cute kind (at least i think so)
how do you take care of her during winter time?

i appreciate if you share your advice with me
elie@Planetsave.com

Moby Dick said...

The best way to take care of turtles during the winter is to keep their water warm (if possible). If they are inside your home in an aquarium, you really do not have to do anything, since the temperature of the water will reflect the home environment. Turtles only hibernate when it gets cold in winter and they have to dig into the mud and hibernate in there. I let a couple of turtles hibernate in Florida in my yard and I marked where they were and a while later ants were eating one of them and the other one I never figured out what happened to that turtle, I think it got out and went somewhere else. So after that unhappy experience with my turtles I just keep them inside during winter.

Good luck!!