#Florida Softshell Turtle

[vintagewildlife]

Florida softshell turtle By: Sullivan & Rogers From: The Complete Encyclopedia of the Animal World 1980

[infodumpingaboutnature]

Merry belated Christmas everyone!!! I’ve been wanting to make a post for a while now but things have been pretty hectic between coming back from my trip to Florida and helping my family with last minute preparations for Christmas. After that my brain needed a few days to just be goop but I’m back now and want to talk about something pretty cool! So while I was in Florida me and my bf went to go visit this wetlands called Green Cay where you can walk around a board walk and see some pretty cool birds and reptiles. The day we went was pretty cold and cloudy (it was like that for most of the time I was there) so that meant there weren’t many reptiles out but it also meant there weren’t many people there either so we got to see a lot of really cool birds!

As soon as we pulled up to the parking lot we were seeing birds such as blue jays, northern mocking birds, common grackles (of course), a red-bellied woodpecker, mourning doves, and a bunch of squirrels. I know none of those species are rare so it makes sense that I would see them but I think it’s so cool to see species that I’m used to like blue jays, squirrels, and woodpeckers hanging out in palm trees.

(Red-Bellied Woodpecker)

Next, we went into the visitor center where they had a few exhibits with animals. The first was a display about native frogs Vs invasive frogs that had Cuban tree frogs and cane toads for the invasive species and green tree frogs, pig frogs, and southern toads for the natives. Sadly, I could only find the Cuban tree frog, cane toad, and pig frog since the glass was super foggy and the frogs like to hide anyways. They also had an American kestrel named Kilee and an Eastern screech owl named Oliver in little flight cages. Both birds were born in the wild but now have injuries that prevent them from flying so they have to live the rest of their lives at the center. The sign said Oliver had been hit by a car and for Kilee it just said she had problems with her wing feathers so idk what happened to her. There was also two tanks one that had turtles (peninsula cooters, Florida softshell, and Florida red-bellied) and a second tank that had some baby American Alligators.

(Pig frog, Cuban tree frog, Kilee the American kestrel, Oliver the Eastern screech owl, peninsula cooter, and American alligator babies)

In the actual park we saw lots of cool species since there weren’t many people out. Like I said no alligators though since it was pretty cold out but we did see plenty of iguanas, a massive Florida Softshell in the water, and a basilisk lizard sitting in a tree!

(Large male green iguana and either a brown basilisk or a green basilisk who isn’t showing off his coloration we couldn’t tell)

That’s all the pics I can add to this post so I’m gonna make a part 2 with all the birds we saw.

[lshedra-blog]

Florida Soft Shell Turtle Bedding by Lutfi Shedraway Via Flickr: On a very, very rare occasions, these types of turtles emerges from the water, I had such a rare occasion. She dugged a hole to lay her eggs and that is for the most of the times when these type of turtles are seen outside water bodies. They like swamps and they like to submerge most of the times, only sneaking enough to breath air. They like calm waters vs currents/flowing water. Its named Florida Softshell Turtle because, they are hardly found outside Florida and they have leather like soft shells vs. the hard shells, other turtles are known for. The Florida Softshell turtle is almost entirely aquatic, only emerging from the water to bask or to lay eggs. In the water, it prefers to bury itself in the sandy/muddy substrate. Like all Softshell turtles, it is very fast-moving in water. While this species is omnivorous, its diet consists largely of meat, consuming mainly fish, insects, crustaceans, frogs and mollusks. It may also scavenge.

[everythingunderthesky]

Warning: No pancake stacking.

Turtle behavior info found on Reptifiles!

1 2 3 [You are here!] 5 6 

[secretjardins]

“Albino Florida Softshell Turtle” by Forlurn

[theworldoutsidethecave]

[hyperfixation-floodgate]

What kind of creatures reside in the murky, mucky storm water retention pond at my work?

One of the world's smallest! The Least Killifish is the smallest live-bearing fish in the world! They live alongside a zillion Eastern Mosquitofish and possibly some other species I haven't caught yet to identify.

A bunch of softies! I see softshell turtles a lot, butI haven't looked up what species they are yet.

Giant, hella invasive fish! (Plecostomas added a while ago to control algae. They do not) Thankfully, the pond does not directly output to any other bodies of water, even if it floods, and it has a fish fry control grate on the overflow outlet for the grass carp that were recently added.

Gators!! Mainly small ones, safely growing bigger away from the adults. I see them basking or floating almost every day. I stumbled on this guy napping while I took a walk.

I recently got up enough courage to offer to help take care of the pond, which has an immensely thick layer of muck on the bottom and so little oxygen that the fish hang out in a few shallow channels most of the time.

To my surprise, management happily agreed and is giving me everything I requested to take care of it, including a nice aerator and hundreds of dollars of beneficial bacteria tablets. Even my suggestions to change the landscaping routine and plant native pond plants were enthusiastically accepted.

After being fired from a well paying job because I dared to ask for (completely free, barely visible) disability accommodations, this event is mind blowing to me.

[berrymeter]

idk if i should advertise comms on FA when i get back from the zoo or later... cuz i will be a little sploded from this whole Awake thing

[amnhnyc]

Sunshine State residents, do you recognize this little neighbor? It’s the Florida softshell turtle (Apalone ferox)! Unlike many turtles, you might find this critter darting about on land or swimming rapidly in water. Its hydrodynamic, flattened shell, and four strongly-webbed feet help it to move swiftly. Softshells stick mostly to water and have long necks and snouts that they poke above the surface, like a snorkel, to breathe. Juveniles have more contrasting color patterns than adults: their carapace, or shell, can be olive, tan, or light brown with spots and a yellow rim.

Photo: kimberry, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

[herpsandbirds]

I dunno about you but I love spiny softshell turtles! I saw a baby one once (maybe 2 inch diameter shell?) in a nearby river and have been enamored since. Even wrote a short story about it for a nature writing class :)

I've kept them in aquaria for one of my jobs, and every time I go to a local park, near my best friends house, there are huge softshells i get to see every time.

Here's one of my favorite softshells...

Florida Softshell (Apalone ferox), hatchling, family Trionychidae, Florida, USA

photograph via: https://theturtlesource.com/

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: spiny softshell turtle

It may be neither Flat Fuck Friday nor Turtle Tuesday, but because this is my series and I can do what I want, I'm talking about a very flat turtle. The spiny softshell turtle (Apalone spinifera) is the most widely distributed and possibly the most common softshell turtle in North America. Its range covers most of the Eastern half of the USA and stretched into Canada and Mexico. There are 6 subspecies separated by geography and hybridization can happen in places where their ranges cross. Hybridization has also been known to happen with the Florida softshell (Apalone ferox). The subspecies are the northern (A. s. spinifera), gulf coast (A. s. aspera), Texas (A. s. emoryi), pallid (A. s. pallida), Guadalupe (A. s. guadalupensis), and black (A. s. atra) spiny softshells.

(Image: a spiny softshell turtle seen from above and to the side. It is a turtle with a wide, flat shell. Its head and one foot are visible. The head is skinny and has an elongated nose. The foot is wide and flat, with webbed toes. The turtle is an olive green with black dots on the skin, yellow stripes on the face, and dark spots on the shell. End ID)

The thing that makes a softshell a softshell is the lack of keratinized scutes on their shells. This makes the shells smooth and leathery. The center of the shell has a layer of solid bone user it, but this does not extend to the edges of the shell, making it less rigid. Softshells are the fragile speedsters of the turtle world. Their shells are a lot lighter and often more streamlined, allowing for faster movement both on land and in water, but they provide less defense. Spiny softshells have spiny projections along the front edge of the carapace (upper shell), with males having more than females. They are some of the largest North American freshwater turtles. Females can reach a carapace length of 54 cm (21 in) and 11 kg (25 lbs) while the smaller males max out at about 25 cm (10 in).

(Image: a spiny softshell being held by a person, seen from the front. The leading edge of the carapace is visible, showing off the small spines. End ID)

Spiny softshells have wide, flat, paddle-like feet with three claws and an elongated nose that acts like a snorkel. The turtles are born a bright olive color with striped faces and dark spots on the shell. Males keep their juvenile coloration for their entire lives while females grow darker ad lose many of their markings. It can be very difficult to tell females of different subspecies apart, while males and juveniles can be distinguished by their markings. Smooth skin and highly vascularized membranes in the cloaca, mouth, and throat allow the turtles to breathe by diffusing dissolved oxygen from the water into their blood.

(Image: a male and female spiny softshell facing each other. The male is less than half the size of the female and has an olive colored shell and skin, with dark spots on the shell. The female is a uniform muddy brown color. End ID)

Spiny softshells are generalists able to live in a wide range of habitats. They prefer streams, rivers, and ponds with muddy or sandy bottoms and high visibility, but can live in most freshwater habitats. Softshells are diurnal, spending their days basking and feeding. Being turtles, they are ectothermic, meaning their body temperature matches the surrounding temperature. To warm themselves up, the turtles bask in the sunlight. They can often be found resting on exposed rocks, logs, sandbars, or shorelines. While not particularly social animals, the turtles will bask in groups. When threatened, softshells will attempt to swim away and/or bury themselves. In the right sediment, a softshell can bury itself in under a second. Because their shells are less rigid, softshells have to actively defend themselves when cornered and will bite and scratch. People have to be careful when handling them. They brumate (that's hibernation for reptiles) during winter. While brumating, they bury themselves underwater and slow their metabolism and oxygen requirements. In this state they can fully sustain themselves on oxygen absorbed through their skin or special membranes.

(Image: a spiny softshell turtle buried in its hunting strategy. Only the head is visible above the sand. End ID)

They are primarily carnivores and will eat anything that can fit in their mouths. Aquatic insects, crayfish, worms, amphibians, mussels, snails, fish, and more are on their plate. While capable of fast swimming, they are not pursuit predators. They employ two primary hunting strategies. The first is to bury themselves in the sediment and wait for prey to come by. The second is digging in the sediment to find worms and other animals. Fish have been known to follow digging turtles around to feed on animals unearthed by them.

(Image: a spiny softshell in captivity. It is swimming at the surface of the water in a tank, amongst artificial leaves. End ID)

Spiny softshells mate in spring. Males attempt to woo females by swimming over to them and bumping heads together. The male then sits on top of the female to mate. Unlike most species of turtles, the males do not grab onto the female's shells during mating. Eggs are laid between summer and early fall and will hatch next spring. The female will dig a nest in sandy or gravelly banks and bury the eggs once they have been laid. She provides no further care. Females will typically mate multiple times each year, with each mating having a different nest. The juveniles take 8 to 10 years to reach sexual maturity and they can live up to 50 years in the wild. Many turtles determine sex by the temperature the eggs are incubated in. This is not the case with spiny softshells, who have genetics based sex determination.

(Image: a group of 5 juveniles. The photo focuses on two who are sitting next to each other. One has its front right leg on the shell of the other. They have similar coloration to an adult male. End ID)

(Image: a newborn emerging from its egg. The egg is round and white, looking like a ping-pong ball. Only the head of the turtle has emerged. End ID)

Most subspecies of spiny softshell are classified as least concern or near threatened by the IUCN, meaning they are not in danger of extinction. The exception is the black spiny softshell, also known as the Cuatro Ciénegas softshell, which is critically endangered. The primary threats to the turtles is habitat loss due to human activity. Adults have no natural predators outside of the Florida and adjacent state populations, which are prey to alligators. Juveniles are eaten by a variety of animals including fish, snakes, raccoons, and herons. People will also eat the adults. Because it can take a whole decade for juveniles to become reproductive, losses in population take a long time to replace. They have been introduced to areas outside of their native range, most notably the western USA. Most of these introductions are due to people releasing pet turtles into the wild.

(Image: someone holding a juvenile. The shell is 2-3 times the size of the human's thumb. End ID)

[infodumpingaboutnature]

Me and my bf just helped a Florida Softshell Turtle (Apalone ferox) cross the road in his neighborhood.

They have really long necks so you have to hold them from the back so you don’t get bit, but this beauty was surprisingly calm while we moved her towards the pond that she was heading to. There’s a couple ponds in community and it was trying to go from one to another but it needed to cross the road but luckily was found by a group of neighbor kids who called my bf to help since he’s known as the reptile guy in his neighborhood.

I hope this beautiful girl has a happy life and that she doesn’t need to cross anymore roads or if she does she has someone to help her. 🐢

[arminreindl]

Back to older art. These are giant softshell turtles found in the Eocene Drazinda Formation of Pakistan. On the left is Drazinderetes (Greek for Drazinda Rower), known from a bony carapace 0.8 meters long. On the right, an indetermined softshell turtle that may or may not belong to the same species, but is only known from a plastron element. This might correspond to a bony shell 1.2 meters long. As you can see there are some big difference between the lower estimate and the upper estimate, which has a lot of free space. This is because in different softshell turtles there's difference ratios between the bony and the soft shell parts. The lower estimate is based on Apalone softshell turtles, which have only 20% cartilage on the shell, while the upper is based on the Malayan softshell which has up to 45% cartilage in addition to the bone. First image Apalone ferox (Florida softshell) by Johnskate17 on Wikimedia Second image Dogania subplana (Malayan softshell) by Wibowo Djatmiko on Wikimedia

Drazinderetes lived during the Eocene in what is now Pakistan in the Drazinda Formation. This is interesting as this formation preserves a marine environment, meaning that in the absence of evidence that the fossils were washed out at sea, Drazinderetes might have been a marine animal. This would match its enormous size, as most giant turtle species have been marine (not counting those of Miocene South America). Although this would make it the first known fully marine softshell until evidence of the contrary is found, modern softshells are known to occasionally enter saltwater. Drazinderetes shared its environment with crocodiles similar to Asiatosuchus, early manatee relatives in the form of Protosiren and primitive whales related to Basilosaurus. The following reconstructions have both been made by @knuppitalism-with-ue during his paleoart streams.

[lartiel]

MY OWN TMNT ITERATION

Cause why not

Controlled Chaos: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

-Small summary of my idea-

Inspired by 2012 and 2018 tmnt as in taking some of the ideas of having a society of mutants ( no yokai ) kinda of like a show I watched called BNA.

Society knows about mutants but they aren’t the most popular with them, lots of discrimination at first that’s has been going on for some years now. The krangg have been kidnapped people and using them as experiments for years and some have escaped, and others have been discarded so over some decades they have become apart of society again like any other citizen ( doesn’t stop people from hating on them ) many people have been lost over the years.

The kragg and the foot are the ones who made the mutagen to began with, it works mostly like 2012 but also has a different version of it that can mutant/mix you with only the DNA of the specific animal mixed into it.

-More at a later date | iteration currently under construction-

Hight and age

| HAMATO CLAN |

Donnie: 4’4-age: 9

Species: Smooth soft shell-male

Ralph: 5’7-age: 15

Species: Pig-nosed soft shell-male

Leo: 5’4-age: 12

Species: Florida soft shell-trans female

Mikey: 5’0-age: 13

Species: Black softshell-male

Venus: 5’10-age: 15

Species: Spiny soft shell-female

Splinter: 6’8-age: 30-40

Species: kangaroo rat

————————————————————————

Hight and age

FOOT CLAN

Coming soon ( maybe )

[mxalmighty]

a trio of turts on paper bc i haven't been happy with my digital art lately at all but my pencil sketches are comin' out okay i guess

i am completely normal for these turtles okay

Leo and Raph are drawn without references, Donnie is a screenshot redraw from the savage raph episode

a few rambling things to note about how i've started to hc these turts, because it may at some point become relevant idk; > rise!leo is ftm trans and bi- this is rarely gonna be relevant in my art but eh, maybe i'll do pride arts at some point. i'll probably only tag relevant art though > i like to make poor raph suffer with my hc's and i honestly can't explain it, maybe he's just too cute and my squish response is triggered- but the boy has gigantism, and it doesn't do him any favors. i love giant raph but let's be real, that's gotta be rough on the internals. i imagine as he gets older and thus bigger, he gets slower and more hindered by this condition, at least until his awesome family finds a fix > i draw donnie's nose different from all the others bc one of the ways to tell apart a spiny softshell vs a smooth or florida softshell is their nostrils and i just appreciate that okay > also post-movie donnie probably can't stand the feeling of anything softly or gently touching him so kiss that shirt goodbye it's probably skin-tight and weighted everything after that. give donnie weighted blankets with rough textures he would honestly probably appreciate it > if raph can't have markings that glow, give him MORE SPIKES >(

[idioticsky]

ORIGINAL TMNT ITERATION OCS AND INFO OR REFS SHEETS/WRITING FOR THE BOYS??? 👁👁

Shhh I have yet to figure out everything, but I'm getting there-

Buuuuuuut, I will give some basic info if you wish my dear friend Cherry :]

Donnie

Oldest out of him and his brothers (17)

Florida softshell turtle

The technical team leader, but Leo just says everything that he says but louder (he doesn't really care too much tho-)

Still got his low empathy from rise

Still the tech genius of the team, spends most of his time in the lab

5'9 (tallest he'll get is like 5'11)

Still uses his Bō staff

Really hasn't been the same after the "incident"

Mikey

Second oldest (16)

Painted turtle

The team parent, he's trying to keep everyone together and stop Leo and Raph from fighting 24/7. The one making sure Donnie gets some food most days since he never leaves his lab

Draws and cooks to help relax after a long day

ADHD baby

5'5 (tallest he'll get is like 5'9-5'10)

Still got his nunchucks

Doesn't like to think about the incident

Leo

Middle child and twin with Raph (both 13, will explain the middle child bit in a sec after I get done with Raph)

Still a Red-eared slider

Still the face man and "team leader" but bro's just a goof who tries to show off to every cute guy or girl he gets the chance to talk with (he's a horrible flirt)

team medic as well since I love the idea of him being all jokes then serious when someone gets injured pretty bad

5'6 (tallest he'll get is like 6'3)

Also got ADHD baby

Still got his katanas

Really too young to remember the incident other than bits and pieces

Raph

Middle child (13)

Green sea turtle

Really nice and kind to people who aren't family, but he can be a menace to his fam

Likes to cook with Mikey and take care of his pet cat that his little sister promptly names Snickers cuz the cat constantly made the sound when they found them

Loose canon on missions sometimes

5'7

ADD boy

He got both his tonfa and sai

With Leo on barely remembering the incident

Now, explaining the middle child nonsense. I have an oc that I made a bit ago names Amelia (named after Amelia Earhart since I really liek the history with her), she's the turtles baby sister. Do I have a drawing of her? No- no I don't. Will I have one at some point? No idea man, anyway info time for her

Amelia

Youngest (8)

Cape dwarf gecko/common dwarf gecko

Really sweet and loves to tinker with things, she'll soon become the mechanic and works on anything that Donnie doesn't have time for (*cough cough* turtle tank *cough cough*)

About 2'5 (so smoll, tallest she'll get is about 5'5)

She'll learn hand-to-hand combat when she's older, like boxing and stuff

Girl got a NASTY right hook

She was a baby when the incident happened

Now, this little incident that happened is the reason we don't got info for Splinter. What happened was Donnie and Mikey were out grabbing some groceries and were followed home by Bishop and his crew. They had gotten a few reports of turtle kids roaming around and needed to check it out. Needless to say, Splinter was captured and killed that night, but at least she (yes in this iteration she's their mom and not their dad) got her children out safe. They've been living in their new lair ever since.

But yeah! This is the basics! Hope you like em Cherry! :D

(Don't mind me also writing headcanons for Danny and Leo that I'll post later)