Pond slider
Trachemys scripta
— Where the name comes from
Trachemys joins trachýs, “rough”, to emys, the water turtle; scripta means “written”, for the fine yellow lines that look drawn in pen on the head and legs. The red “ears” are not ears but two patches behind the eye, and the animal, like all turtles, hears through a tympanic membrane covered in skin.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Turtles and tortoises
- Habitat
- Ponds, lakes, canals, fountains in town parks
- Range
- Native to the south-eastern United States; introduced worldwide
- Size
- 20–30 cm of carapace, 500 g–2 kg
- Diet
- Omnivorous — water plants, insects, tadpoles, fish, carrion
- Lifespan
- 30 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It basks piled on logs, sometimes three deep.
- 02
The young are nearly carnivorous and become more vegetarian as adults.
- 03
It tolerates polluted water that no European species would survive.
— What sets it apart
It is the pet that invaded the world. Between the 1980s and 1990s hundreds of millions of hatchlings the size of a coin were sold, often to children who kept them in plastic trays; when they reached twenty centimetres they ended up in the park pond. It is now among the hundred most damaging invasive species on the planet, the European Union has banned its trade and keeping, and across half of Italy it has taken the place of the native pond terrapin.
