Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Red-Eared Slider Turtle
By: Tom Berg
Turtles are common sights around ponds, lakes, and streams, and there are about 58 different species of turtles living in the United States today. In fact, the USA is the country with the greatest number of turtle species in the world, even though there are more than 350 species of turtles and tortoises living worldwide.
One of those turtle species is the familiar red-eared slider turtle. This turtle was named because of the bright red stripe behind its eyes on either side of its head, right where its ears would be. It is called a “slider” because of its habit of quickly sliding off of rocks and logs where it is sunning itself when people or predators get too close.
The red stripes on its head makes it easy to tell apart from other turtles. It has a dark-colored shell, and its head, legs and tail are marked with thin yellow lines or stripes. The shell also has some yellowish stripes and markings. The eyes can be bright yellow to green, with a black stripe through the middle. Its feet are webbed to help it swim and all of its limbs (head, legs and tail) can be retracted inside its shell when threatened.
Like all turtles, red-eared sliders are cold-blooded creatures and must use an external source of heat to warm themselves up – like the sun. Turtles of all kinds are often seen sunning themselves on logs, muddy banks and rocks in an effort to increase their body temperature. Among other things, this stimulates their metabolism and helps them to digest their food more efficiently.
The red-eared slider is native to the Mississippi River drainage in the Midwest, all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico. Their original range included most of Texas and Oklahoma, all the way east through Alabama and western Georgia, and north through western Tennessee and northwest Kentucky. They are native to most of Illinois and Missouri, too.
However, the red-eared slider has been introduced to most of the rest of the country by the pet trade and because people release their pet turtles when they get tired of them. So this “native” turtle is now an ‘invasive species” in many areas of the USA!
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