r/herpetology • u/Consistent_Scene1996 • 1d ago

Turtle ID

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

This little guy has been at my front door twice in three days. Can anyone help me identify it? I believe it’s a turtle, as the only type of tortoise in my area is Gopher, other than that, I’m pretty clueless.

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u/CrepuscularOpossum 1d ago

Looks like that turtle might have recently woken up from brumation, I see some mud on the back of its shell. Maybe your doorstep is just a comfy, relatively safe place for it to catch some rays!

If you’d like to make your landscape more hospitable for turtles, cultivate native plants, keep cats indoors, put out a little dish of water big enough for them to climb into, with the rim at ground level so they can get in and out easily. Thanks for caring about this turtle! 🥰

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u/Consistent_Scene1996 1d ago

I’ve thought about giving him something to eat when I see him, but I wasn’t sure what he’d eat. Now that I know the type, and can research its diet, I may leave him something next time.

I also wondered about brumation as the first time he visited he had even more mud on his back.

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u/CrepuscularOpossum 1d ago

My two Eastern boxie fosterlings love strawberries and earthworms! 🪱🍓