Turtles of James Madison

New Regulations to Protect Virginia’s Snapping Turtles | VDGIF New Regulations to Protect Virginia’s Snapping Turtles A common snapper paddles around the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. © Steven David Johnson.By Jo Ann Abell One day last fall, the dogs were raising a ruckus in our front yard. Their loud, insistent barking told me they had discovered some...

Today we found this Painted Turtle crossing University Blvd right by the Arboretum. This time of year you can often find turtles crossing roads either to lay their eggs or move between ponds. If you find a turtle on the road and can safely stop, we encourage you to help the turtle across in the direction it was crossing. For snapping turtles, you can grab them by the back portion of their shell (where the back legs insert) and scoot them across.

Dragonflies and damselflies are some of the many animals our turtles share the ponds with. From Gillian Slekar, our resident damselfly expert, "Damselflies are smaller relatives of dragonflies. There are many species that come in an array of colors. Something unique and cool about damselflies is that when they mate, their bodies form a heart shape."

An good video on how you can help turtles

Turtles: Dos and Don'ts Tips from the Wildlife Center of Virginia on what you should or shouldn't do to help turtles in the wild.

Meet Rapunzel. She is the only Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta scripta) in our ponds, and likely the mother of the hybrid turtle we discussed in May. Yellow-bellied Sliders are actually native to Virginia, but only in Southeastern Virginia. Here they are an introduced species, and Rapunzel is likely a released pet. In their native range, they are threatened as their gene pool is altered through hybridization with introduced Red-eared Sliders.

Meet Pascal. This young turtle is a hybrid of a Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) and Yellow-bellied Slider (Trachemys scripta scripta). These turtles are both subspecies of the invasive Pond Slider, but originally come from different parts of the United States. We have one female Yellow-bellied Slider in the Arboretum, where Pascal was found, so she is likely Pascal's mother.

After a long hiatus, we are back to studying the turtles around JMU. Here is a Painted Turtle we caught yesterday, which happened to be World Turtle Day. We have been catching a lot of yearlings, probably the hatchlings we showed you last year!

World Turtle Day was yesterday, but today we have newly hatched baby turtles of both Red-eared Sliders and Painted Turtles!

Here is a helpful guide on how to identify two of the turtle species at JMU

Today we presented our a poster with preliminary results from our turtle sampling at JMU's Biosymposium.