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.