White Blotches on Turtle's Shell... Help???

[Frank Castle]

Wow ok. I didn't know they developed the claws so early on. Thanks!

Anytime, bro.

 

[CDMay]

Agree with Frank. It looks like she has some incomplete shedding of her dorsal scutes to me.
It also looks as if the scutes were pealed off before they were ready to come off.
Regardless, the plastron looks fine and if there was a real problem with serious shell fungus it would have manifested itself on the plastron too---if not before the carapace.
As for basking all the time well, that's what they do! They love the sunshine.

 

[TroyMIfishkeeper]

Thanks! Now if I could just figure out what kind of turtle she even is haha

 

[CDMay]

That's easy. Southern painted turtle, C. p. dorsalis.

 

[TroyMIfishkeeper]

Ok, so it is a southern painted. Cool

 

[Frank Castle]

t

Ok, so it is a southern painted. Cool

yea, remember I wasn't sure so I did a bunch of research and I made that post about it just having "unlikely" colors for a Painted turtle, but ultimately I changed my mind back and agreed it was a Painted despite the lack of red.......


this one:

Yea, to me that looks more like a Cooter or a Chicken turtle or something. It has the stripe that only the Southern Painteds have, but the rest of the colors and markings are not painted.

Also white vinegar is safe too if you don't have lemon juice.

On 2nd thought, maybe it is a painted...says here "red or yellow stripe down the carapace, plastron yellow and unmarked". I was looking for some red where the front legs meet the body, but this one just might not have any. Nothing else in N. America has that stripe and looks like that....lemme check out yellow-bellied slider...but IDR them having a stripe..

whatever it is, it's female

It DOES lack a lot of characteristics I'm used to seeing in Painteds, but turtles can look as different s human beings I suppose. I base this on the fact that there simply is no other NA-turtle that has the stripe on the back

 

[CDMay]

Yep, southern painted turtles are the least 'painted' of the painted turtle subspecies. They can have plastrons that look dull yellow to somewhat orange but they always lack the vibrant carmine red that their northern (and western) cousins possess.
They're still really neat in their own way and they stay small too.

 

[TroyMIfishkeeper]

Yep, southern painted turtles are the least 'painted' of the painted turtle subspecies. They can have plastrons that look dull yellow to somewhat orange but they always lack the vibrant carmine red that their northern (and western) cousins possess.
They're still really neat in their own way and they stay small too.

Yeah, I've noticed that they don't seem to get as large as other painteds.