Herpetofauna: One Life's List

Trachemys scripta elegans
Red Eared Slider

near Eminence, Missouri
June 6, 1972

Behold the mighty Red-Ear!  Dime-store turtle, denizen of the plastic death bowl (complete with plastic palm tree) and colonizer of foreign waters.  Tough and adaptable, and cute as a button just hatched.  I've seen them everywhere; the clean, cold waters of the Current River, the muddy, sludgy lower Meramec, storm sewers, parks, farm ponds, roadside ditches, and crossing roads far from water.  In my youth I kept them in plastic 'kiddie pools' for a number of years.

Far too numerous in captivity and other places they shouldn't be, I prefer to see them on a log somewhere, basking in the sun over some river.  I've seen them along the Rio Grande in south Texas, and their shells are very beautiful there (see top right photo).