Trachemys scripta elegans, the red-eared slider is brightly colored when a hatchling, less so as an adult, and may live for more than 50 years.
Let’s hearken back to the 1940s and 1950s. Despite those “old days,” in fact those “old years,” being the formative years for my interest in herpetology and herpetoculture, I’ll be the first to admit that they were among the toughest of times for the little turtles then referred to by the dealers (in those days dealers were as diverse as 5&10 cent stores and every town’s independent pet shop) as “baby green turtles.”