Diamondback Terripan

[woodjin]

Wow, that is a shame. When I think of longevity with turtles I think of snappers. Do you know how long box turtles generally live?

Speaking of turtles, I saw my sixth snapper today. I was driving through tabernacle west of 206 in the heavy rain when I saw this woman running from her parked car to the road side. I look over and there is a large snapper along the edge. As I was pulling over myself, she made it to the turtle and tried to grab him and pull him over to the side. Next thing I know, she is running like Hell back to the car. She sees me and says "I was trying to help him and he tried to bite my hand off. LOL. She wasn't hurt. the snapper made his way to a rain run off on the side and to safety. I told her it was just the turtles nature and instucted her in snapper herding techniques. She was a good soul.

Jeff

 

[woodjin]

As a note to my previous post...this was the sixth snapper I saw in 2005, not in my life time.

 

[Lorun]

I saved a snapper while on a morning bike ride. The bugger pissed on me and I got a serios case of poison ivy for my effort. To top it off, I think the same turtle went back into the street and got squashed the same day.

 

[Bobbleton]

Wow, that is a shame. When I think of longevity with turtles I think of snappers. Do you know how long box turtles generally live?
Jeff

A healthy box turtle can live 80+ years in the wild. The only major threats to them as individuals are hibernation and cars. The longest record I've heard of is 138 years in the wild.
-Bob

 

[uuglypher]

Bob-
In the mid 50s there were newspaper stories of a box turtle found somewhere out on Long Island with some initials and a date from the early 19th century carved in the plastron - both were quite worn but, from the published photograph, still legible - that would have put that individual in the neighborhood of the record age you mentioned. I wonder if it was, perchance, the same turtle?

I used to have clippings on it from the Trib and the Times - sadly, long since misplaced or discarded.

Dave

A healthy box turtle can live 80+ years in the wild. The only major threats to them as individuals are hibernation and cars. The longest record I've heard of is 138 years in the wild.
-Bob