ID on my painted turtle

[fhawk362]

Could anyone give me an id on my painted turtle, also sex if possible?

 

[Chrisplosion]

Looks like a Western Painted. Too small to sex.

 

[fhawk362]

I figured it was too small to sex, and how do you tell between the different species, what do you tend to look for.

 

[Chrisplosion]

Underbelly I think, red for western yellow for eastern. Could be wrong.

 

[coura]

Its a western without a doubt. First there are no diferent painted species, there are subspecies (4 types in total), painted species its only one Chrysemys picta. The diference lays in the combination of size, plastron color and padrons in shell, head and limbs.

 

[ceeej31]

western, they have greenish shells

 

[Noto]

I agree it is a western painted turtle. Any and all subspecies can have bright red plastra (lower shells) when young, but only western and midland painteds have dark plastral patterns (plastron plain in southern and eastern). Only the western painted will have markings on the pleural scutes (large scutes to either side of the central row of scutes on the carapace). Other painted turtles only have markings on the marginal scutes (small scutes at the edges of the carapace) plus the red vertebral stripe., with the carapace otherwise being plain brown to black. The head and neck patterns are also different in each subspecies.

Coura- FYI, the most recent treatment of Chrysemys has divided it into two monotypic species: southern painted turtle, C. dorsalis (former C. picta dorsalis) and northern painted turtle, C. picta (the other three former subspecies). I myself am dubious of the arrangement due to the authors' reliance on mitochondrial DNA alone and the lack of samples from the contact zone between the two putative species (I live near this contact zone, and can tell you that morphological intergrades between "C. dorsalis" and C. p. marginata are common over a fairly broad area).

http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/21.pdf

 

[coura]

I agree it is a western painted turtle. Any and all subspecies can have bright red plastra (lower shells) when young, but only western and midland painteds have dark plastral patterns (plastron plain in southern and eastern). Only the western painted will have markings on the pleural scutes (large scutes to either side of the central row of scutes on the carapace). Other painted turtles only have markings on the marginal scutes (small scutes at the edges of the carapace) plus the red vertebral stripe., with the carapace otherwise being plain brown to black. The head and neck patterns are also different in each subspecies.

Coura- FYI, the most recent treatment of Chrysemys has divided it into two monotypic species: southern painted turtle, C. dorsalis (former C. picta dorsalis) and northern painted turtle, C. picta (the other three former subspecies). I myself am dubious of the arrangement due to the authors' reliance on mitochondrial DNA alone and the lack of samples from the contact zone between the two putative species (I live near this contact zone, and can tell you that morphological intergrades between "C. dorsalis" and C. p. marginata are common over a fairly broad area).

http://www.cnah.org/pdf_files/21.pdf

Wow thanks men, I am always up for that kind of taxonomic updates