A Turtle of the Big Bend

"Stop!" Jake hollered. There's a turtle on that rock. It's a slider! Oh and there's a couple of others swimming around the rocks."

We were on a curve on a narrow section of road on a bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The road shoulder was only a couple of feet wide and even though traffic was light, I was nervous about stopping. I slowed, eased forward, and just as I was about to suggest that Jake hop out with his camera and I would find a parking spot and walk back, the shoulder widened slightly and I was able to stop safely.

Both Jake and I were happy about this opportunity, for earlier, as we had begun to focus on a distant slider at another pull-off, the turtle had dropped from its basking snag into the silted water and was gone.

These, on the other hand, rather than having already basked and warmed were just hauling out of the river to begin a new basking sequence. Hopefully, this would provide us a second opportunity for photos. And it did.

Adults of the Big Bend slider, Trachemys gaigeae, are rather small, attaining a length of only 6 to 8 inches. This taxon has 2 discrete red spots behind each eye and an extensive dark figure on the plastron.

Its range in the USA is discontinuous in the Rio Grande (and some tributaries and nearby waterholes) from the Big Bend of Texas to central New Mexico.

Since this is a long ways from our homes we were happy to be afforded the photo ops offered by the cooperative turtles. We may try to upgrade next year, but for now consider these pictures more than adequate.

More photos below...

Basking time in the Rio Grande for a Big Bend slider. Hatchling Big Bend sliders are a pale green dorsally.

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.