Adult matamatas, like this 10 incher, are darker in color than the hatchlings.I was walking and netting slowly in the shallows of the Rio Orosa (Amazonian Peru) hoping against hope to find young marbled swamp eels, Suriname toads, aquatic caecilians, or baby electric eels. So far I had found only a few tetra and cichlid species but it was getting late and I was getting tired. Lightning rent the sky and illuminated the towering cumulus clouds miles distant, closer to the Rio Amazonas. Another scoop produced a few more fish and a 3” long rock. Whoops. There are no rocks like that in the Amazon. I had scooped a baby matamata, Chelus fimbriatus, from the grassy shallows. And after 20+ years of scooping it remains the only one I have ever personally found.

There is no other turtle in the world that even approximates the appearance of the matamata. The mud-colored, rough textured, flattened, oblong, carapace bears 3 prominent keels. The plastron is small and provides virtually no protection to the underside of the limbs or neck. The neck is horizontally flattened and prominently fringed. The head is flattened, bears triangular temporal lobes, a snorkel like nose, small eyes, and a wide curved jaw. Neck and head are mud-brown dorsally. Ventrally the head and neck of adults (they can reach a length of 16”) are usually dark but young examples have a pinkinsh chin and 3 very pink, broad, throat stripes .

But enough words. The accompanying pix will better explain the overall appearance of this remarkable turtle. Enjoy.

Hatchling spotted turtles usually have only a single spot in each carapacial scute. These may increase in number as the turtle ages.
Strange though it may seem, the beautiful and aptly named spotted turtle, Clemmys guttata, has been hiding in many of its disjunct Florida ranges pretty much in plain sight. Now the lone species in the genus Clemmys, the spotted turtle has an immense, but disjunct, range that reaches on one leg of the range from southeastern Canada westward to eastern Illinois and on the other leg southward from southeastern Maine through the eastern seaboard states to central Florida. Everywhere secretive, it is nowhere more so than in Florida.

Because of examples found along Interstate 4, what is thought to be the southernmost population (Polk County) is rather well documented. From there it jumps spottily northward along the east coast to Duval County and westward to Hamilton and Wakulla counties. Long known to occur in north central Florida, the Alachua County population is currently being tracked and documented by FWC biologists. There they are finding that the population is more robust than was expected. This is encouraging in a world where so many other herp species are being extirpated or actually becoming extinct. And if you happen to find a spotted turtle, either dead or alive, in Florida, please take a moment to contact and advise the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Adult Colombian red ears may attain 10" in length and the pattern becomes suffused with melanin.
No doubt worse for the baby turtles than for the humans who bought them, there was a time- span of several decades (until 1975 when the sale of turtles having a carapace length of less than 4” became illegal) when hatchling red-eared sliders, Cumberland sliders, and Mississippi map turtles were sold over the counters of almost every five and dime store in the nation. In that time frame the little turtles were hatched in Gulf Coast turtle farms by the tens of thousands. But it was soon apparent that despite the immense numbers produced, the little reptiles became unavailable for several months each year. To the rescue of the industry came the South American country of Colombia.

Their baby turtles, both red-eared sliders and Amazon sidenecks, hatched at a different time of the year and became available as a “fill in” for the months when the American species were not available.

Thus, we were introduced to the Colombian red-eared slider. Then (when subspecies were in vogue), this pretty turtle was known as Pseudemys scripta callirostris. Today this same species is known as Trachemys callirostris, and it, like many other once common pet trade species, is no longer often seen.