The Painted Turtles

The Painted Turtles

The orange markings on a painted turtle are clearly visible on the
 legs of the turtle.

So far in our Herpetology project, we have found more painted turtles - three - than any other kind of turtle. Painted turtles are easily identifiable by the orange markings on their skin and shell, and their full protective bottom shell. Some turtles have only a partial bottom shell, but the painted turtle has a full one.

The full bottom shell of a painted turtle is clearly shown above.

Another, rather unfortunate, characteristic of painted turtles is that they have a tendency to release urine when they are scared (i.e., when we pick them up).
So far, we have found all of our painted turtles around our pitfall trap system. They can sometimes be hard to spot due to their tendency to blend in with their surroundings.

This is where we found out first painted turtle! It's in the center of the image.

This first turtle had a carapace length of 13 cm and a carapace width of 9.8 cm. We tried to weigh it, but it was too large for our scale! Our second painted turtle, found a few days later, had a carapace length of 15.3 cm. and a carapace width of 13.2 cm. Its mass was 392.8 grams.

Here's our second painted turtle trying to bite us!

Finally, the third painted turtle had a shell length of 13.6 cm., a width of 11 cm., and a mass of 377.4 grams. In addition to weighing and measuring the turtles, we also mark their shells so that we can identify them if we catch them again. We just file a couple of the little ridges that the turtle has on its shell.

A turtle is having its shell marked with a triangular file.

We've caught so many turtles, I hope we catch a snapping turtle next!

-Johnny

A Warm Blooded Encounter

Dig-Dug The Mole

Dig-Dug Searches for a place to burrow...

... Unsuccessfully.

On May, 23 we found this little critter, a mole! Much different from our usual pitfall trap catch, it was a warm blooded mammal known as a mole. This little guy can barely see and relies mostly on his tremendous sense of smell, ability to feel tiny vibrations, and sense of a downward direction to find its way through the earth. Somehow it ended up in our pitfall trap with no way to escape down as it normally would. When we released it onto the ground it crawled around all over the place searching for a good place to burrow.

After watching it try to find a spot to burrow for a few minutes we remembered a nearby patch of soft earth that it would easily be able to burrow into and brought it over to it.

So we gave him a hand!

And away he went!

 It quickly burrowed into the hillside of loose dirt and thankfully it has avoided the traps since then and we have not seen it since that day. I hope that it is still well and alive in the ground around our pitfall traps, but not caught in them.

  

Musk Turtle

On Tuesday, May 21, 2013 we found a musk turtle. This turtle was located on the black pitfall trap fence between the last and second to last bucket. This was a hot, sunny morning and it had rained the day before. This turtle was relatively small and round. It weighed 149.22 grams; its carapace width was 6.8 centimeters, and its carapace length was 9.5 centimeters. It was black and did not have any colorful markings. Because it was a musk turtle, it released a bad scent when we scared it. The bottom of the turtle, called a plastron had white marks. We marked the turtle for future identification by using a file to put marks into its external scutes, which are the areas at the edge of the turtle's shell separated by lines. Each scute is labeled as a,b,c, etc going clockwise around the turtle, starting from the front. We put marks in scutes G, and H.  After identifying and marking the turtle, we put it back on the fence where we found it, and set out to find other turtles.

This is the bottom of the turtle.

Here, we are measuring the carapace length of the turtle.

Toads, Green Frogs, & Turtles

On Tuesday, May 21st, seven of the eight students, myself included, went outside to check the pitfall traps we had made the previous week. We found our first frog in almost a week in the first trap! We were very pleased that we would finally have an animal to measure and observe. After checking all the traps, we had one Green Frog and two American Toads. We took various measurements of the animals such as their width and weight. We then released the animals as close as we could to where we found them. We then turned our attention  to a large Green Frog in the pond near the pitfall traps. Cody used the longest net to try to catch the frog, but his first attempt was unsuccessful. The frog resurfaced, but our second attempt was also a failure. That is when I heard a rustling sound to my right, and it turned out to be a small Musk Turtle trying to climb up the trash bag wall. We then proceeded to take measurements of the turtle and released it back where we found it. We then began walking to the shot-put circle, but only after ten seconds of walking we encountered a larger Painted Turtle. We originally thought the turtle was dead due to the large amount of mosquitoes around it. After it began moving its head, we picked it up and brought it to the field to take measurements. 

Can you find the Tree Frog?

"A tree frog is any frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia have given rise to tree frogs, even though they are not closely related to each other" -Wikipedia
Fun Facts about a Red-Eyed Tree Frog: 

• Their diet is carnivorous.
• They live about 5 years.
• When startled, it flashes its brightly colored body parts.
• They sleep during the day stuck to the bottom of leaves with their eyes closed and brightly colored body parts covered.

Fun Facts and red-eyed tree frog from: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/red-eyed-tree-frog/
Hidden tree frog pic from: http://www.wrappinaboutreptiles.com/fun_facts_page.htm

Tracking Turtles

     On Wednesday May 15, 2013 we went outside with a radio transmitter to try to find turtles that had been previously tagged. We walked along the Assabet River behind Hudson High School with a radio, trying to find a snapping turtle. At first we were unsuccessful in finding a turtle. We walked for about an hour, constantly adjusting the radio waves' frequency to detect the tag on the turtle. There were some deceptive birds that chirped to make us think that the radio was beeping but it never actually did. However, when we got to a street bridge that crosses the river, we had some luck. We scanned the river and adjusted the frequency one last time when we heard the quiet beeping of the radio. We knew that there was a turtle in the area so we set out to find it. The beeping was loudest and most frequent when the radio was pointed at a patch of grass in the river, right in front of the bridge, so we determined the turtle was in that area. Unfortunately, we could not access the turtle because we could not actually go into the river. However, it was a successful endeavor because now we know that the radio transmitter works and that the batteries in the turtle's tag are still alive. We also know a general location of where at least one turtle spends some time, so we know where we can look for turtles in the future.

Building the Traps

Building the Traps

Herpetology Project 2013

So far in our project, we have only accomplished the most important step: building the traps that catch the frogs and other animals that we can then analyze. The pitfall traps are designed to catch the amphibians humanely and without injuring them. The basic concept is to build a fence, partly buried in the ground, with pits spaced 10 meters apart. The frogs are unable to go under the fence, and when they walk down the fence looking for a way across, they fall in the pits, which are deep enough to prevent the frogs from jumping out.

This is the fence we built! A pit can be seen in the center of the picture.

To build a fence like this one, the first step is to dig the pits, spaced 10 meters apart. The pits should be about 2 1/2 - 3 feet deep. Next, dig a trench that connects all of the pits. The base of the fence, which can be constructed from basically any material(our fence was constructed of plastic tarps and PVC pipe), is buried in this trench. Hammer the fence poles into the ground to keep it upright, and your pitfall trap system is complete! We have already met success with the traps, catching both and American toad and a green frog.

This is the green frog we caught!

I wonder what else we will catch?

-Johnny

DAY 1 - New Blog

Welcome to our blog for this year's herpetology project. Can't wait to see all of the great blog posts.