The best
kind of plans are the ones that are made at a good diner over a fresh cup of
coffee while you’re watching a tremendous downpour through the window and
chatting with an old friend about nothing in particular. That’s the
sort of rainy morning it was yesterday when, somewhere between my 2nd
and 3rd French vanilla I decided it would be a good idea, for some
reason, to take a short drive to Tobyhanna State Park in Coolbaugh Township
about 15 minutes from where we were. Tobyhanna is actually an old Indian word
meaning, “Tree Climbing Buffalo Waxer.”
OK, it
doesn’t mean that at all. It’s an Indian word meaning "a stream whose
banks are fringed with alder". I just toss stuff like that out now and
again to keep things interesting. So, by the time we reached the park the weather was just starting to clear up but we didn’t have any tick repellent with us so we decided we couldn’t take a lengthy walk around the lake. That was fine by me! I love losing myself in nature…as long as I have a car with some cold cokes and air conditioning a few feet away. Losing yourself in very close proximity to finding yourself is always the best option.
So in a park spanning 5,440 acres we journeyed about 5 minutes from the parking lot and then 5 minutes back. That’s why our discovery was all the more incredible!
And here she
is! This is a nesting Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta)!
Oh, back to
the description! Eastern Painteds are very colorful water turtles but not quite
as striking as the western painted turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii) which have
much prettier plastrons (bottom shell). They are normally impossible to get
near diving off their resting spot on a rock or log as soon as they see any
danger (that would be you) approaching. For
an impoverished nature buff like myself who can’t afford a fancy schmancy camera
with a super zoom lens, getting good shots of these timid chelonians is a real
trick. This one was so involved in her
egg laying though that my friend and I were able to get close enough to take
some pretty decent photographs!
Painteds
usually date in March and mate in April. From May to July they dig a 4” deep
whole in damp soil and lay 2 to 20 elliptical eggs. In 2 ½ to 3 months if the eggs aren’t dug up
and eaten by a raccoon or a skunk or
some other predator the new born turtles
emerge and are ready to take on the world (or well, at least take on the pond where
they were born.)
Unfortunately,
not too far from this female we found a bunch of nests that had been discovered
and ransacked by some hungry beast. If you look carefully at the shot below you can see the torn fragments of shells in and around the excavated incubation chamber.
So sad! I
can only hope her clutch will remain undiscovered and her offspring will find their
way to the warm light of a waiting day and a new life and enjoy many years in the
lake “whose banks are fringed with alder.”
See? Isn’t
that nice the way I wrapped it all up? And I have NO idea when painteds date, I
just made that bit up. Is there a Match.com for turtles? Hey, it's all out there...somewhere. I know they are active from March to November but
several naturalists have reported even seeing them in January and February
swimming under the ice so they have plenty of time to meet with each other and
make plans. . . maybe over turtle coffee in some sort of
turtle diner? Who knows! If you have any questions or comments about Painted Turtles or ANY kind of turtles or even how to hit on a turtle post it below!
Check back
often for future additions of Kieran’s Critters and thanks again for reading!
In the wild, how long do they live? If a turtle swims under the ice, how the heck do they breathe? That sure is a pretty little lady.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Great question and it got me to do a little research. First off to confirm my assertion here is an excerpt from “A Guide To Reptiles And Amphibians by Thomas F. Tyning (1990)”
Delete“… even during the coldest periods they can occasionally be seen swimming beneath clear ice. They can be found and may be active every month of the year.”
Doesn’t explain much though and I always assumed that they just found natural air pockets beneath the ice to stay alive. I found some good information on-line though, all be it a bit technical, as to what really happens. I have done my best to distill the sequence of chemical events for you,
An inactive, cold painted turtle can absorb enough oxygen from the water through its skin to keep it functioning. Once the water gets too cold and oxygen levels become too depleted the turtles use anaerobic respiration which supplies energy to its system without requiring oxygen intake. The byproduct of this type of respiration however, is lactic acid and if it builds up too high in the bloodstream it can be deadly. Remarkably, painted turtles have buffers in their blood that neutralize it and keep the blood from becoming acidic. The ever growing levels of lactic acid do eventually overwhelm these buffers though so painted turtles release a substance called carbonate from their bone into the bloodstream. Carbonate neutralizes the lactic acid and keeps the turtle's body chemistry in an acceptable range. The turtle’s bony shell is an additional source of carbonate to buffer the lactic acid.”
So it’s oxygen absorption > anaerobic respiration > acid build up > blood buffers to neutralize > continued acid build up > carbonate neutralizers.
Oh and Painteds can live about 40 years maybe even longer if they don’t smoke or drink alcohol.
I hope this helps a bit! Keep an eye out for my upcoming blogs!
This is awesome! great job on the pictures.
ReplyDeleteThanks Melissa! I really appreciate you checking them out!
DeleteNice!
ReplyDeleteThanks! :)
Delete