On the River With an Old Friend

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Carl D. May
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Joined: June 2nd, 2011, 4:17 am

On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Carl D. May »

I've known author and photographer Dick Bartlett for well over 30 years. He befriended me when I was about 22 years old and eager to learn as much as I could about reptiles and amphibians, fish, plants and just about everything else in the wild. Dick (who is known by his close associates as 'Dicky') and his wife Patti kindly allowed me to visit them at their home in Ft. Myers pretty much anytime I wanted, which in those days amounted to about three times a month.
After each trip to Dick's from my home in Palm Beach County I would return with my head filled with information-- as well being sensory overloaded after seeing the Bartlett's collection of snakes, lizards, amphibians and of course, turtles and tortoises, each superbly housed and many freely reproducing. As a matter of fact, the Bartletts have amassed a list of reptile species bred in captivity that exceeds that of most of the best zoos.

Starting in 1984 Dick and I began making periodic reptile hunting trips to the Apalachicola National Forest and surrounding regions that were in addition to the trips we had already been doing all over south Florida. We had good trips and bad, highly successful trips and (wildly) unsuccessful ones too. But they were all priceless to me.

In 2003 the Bartletts generously allowed me the privilege of writing the forward to their now classic, Florida's Snakes:Their Identification and Habits, one of many books that Dick has written himself or co-authored with Patti.

So when Dick expressed a desire to update his photo collection with some images of Barbour's map turtles, and especially the harder to obtain adults, I jumped at the chance to hit the Chipola River with him.
After all, I have seen Barbour's map turtles on virtually every trip I've ever made to Spring Creek and the Chipola River and catching the adult animals with a diving mask and fins is fairly easy.
Usually, I mean.
Really. It's not that hard.

So early Monday morning I met with Dick at his home in Gainesville and from there we would drive over to Marianna where we planned on putting in canoes at Spring Creek. Spring Creek is the spring run from Blue Springs, a first magnitude spring just outside of Marianna. From there we would paddle/drift down to the confluence of the Chipola River and from there on down to Magnolia Bridge.
About halfway to Lake City where we would hit I-10 and drive west to Marianna I realized that I had left my cameras in my car--back in the Bartlett's driveway. Idiot!
Not to worry...Dick had his camera so we were OK. So virtually all of the following photos, save one or two, were taken by him.

October 19th isn't exactly a prime time to be finding reptiles in the Florida panhandle--or as Dicky calls it, 'panhandular' Florida. In addition the temperatures in Marianna that morning were 49 degrees with a stiff breeze out of the northwest. However, by the time we were in our canoes and paddling down Spring Creek the temperature had risen to a steamy 60 degrees which is great.
As long as one stays in their canoe.

Here is a representative photo of the upper portions of Spring Creek taken from Dick's canoe.

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Right away we started seeing basking turtles which was a good sign. Here are two adult yellow bellied sliders, Trachemys scripta out taking in the sun.

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Sadly, they rarely stay there-- so some fool has to put on a mask and go catch them by hand for photos. You can see my blue snorkel in the center of the photo.

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I should mention that although the center of Spring Creek is rather shallow in these upper reaches, wherever large trees emerge from the bank, or where there are large downed trees, the river current undercuts the bank. So in many place the water might actually be as deep as 8 feet or more. The bank can be undercut by a surprising amount and so fleeing turtles will swim back as far as they can to escape perceived danger. What one must do to capture them is dive down and then crawl under the tree roots or downed tree branches in order to reach the animals. What is frustrating is that very often, no matter how hard one tries to squeeze themselves through this tangle of underwater obstacles, you simply cannot reach your quarry-- as they make mocking, smartass faces back at you from the safety of their retreat.

In this instance we came up with a really nice adult male yellow-bellied slider, a ubiquitous species of turtle from north Florida and beyond but not naturally occurring in south Florida. I never get tired of these fine turtles even if they are common.

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This one was bright yellow with a flawless shell.

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Returning from an unsuccessful attempt empty handed.

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I distinctly remember thinking two things when Bartlett snapped this photo: First, I really should have brought that wetsuit like my wife Barbie had told me to do. And two, I'd should start getting some better turtles or Dicky would be razzing me all day.

A little later Dick snapped this picture of a mud turtle.

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It is understandably fuzzy as the current was pretty strong where his canoe was at the time and the image was taken with a telephoto lens. This is the old guy on the bank...

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Just as we had captured this animal Dick suddenly burst out, "Look! There's another one!" and sure enough, not 20 feet away was another old male mud turtle just sitting on the bottom in a foot of clear water. That second capture lead us to start searching the shallow muddy sections of the creek a bit more thoroughly which soon lead to us finding yet another mud turtle, the old female in the next photo. The finding of this female then lead to a debate as to what species of mud turtle they actually were.

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Recent studies by the late Mike Ewert and then Dale Jackson and Trip Lamb have indicated that many of the common, or eastern mud turtles, Kinosternon subrubrum from the panhandle, and in fact as far north as Virginia, are actually striped mud turtles, Kinosternon baurii, in disguise! You see these striped mud turtles don't carry the usual stripes on their shells that give them their common name.
But the canthal stripe (see that little yellow line from her eye to her nose?) and then the broken stripe extending from her eye down to her jaw, and then a subtle feature of her abdominal scutes all say striped mud turtle to me.
sigh...Yes, I know. One has to be a turtle nerd and all to care. But for us guys this is neat stuff.

There was something else about this old girl too. Take a look at the rest of her...

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What the...?!
What had happened to her carapace?

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At some point this female had suffered a catastrophic injury and yet survived and healed. What could have done this? Dick and I concluded that there were really two main possibilities. One, she had been hit by a boat propeller. Or two, she had escaped from the jaws of an alligator snapping turtle, a species well known to eat other turtles.
But there was more. Now look at the left side of her head...

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Another major injury that she had somehow survived. The entire side of her head had been stove in by something and yet again this tough little beast lived. Did this injury happen at the same time as the other? I kind of doubt it. Regardless, what a neat animal!
Dick and I released her right where we had found her and we hoped she continued to thrive in her section of the creek.

We paddled down Spring Creek and would stop at the occasional treefall or exposed logs that had basking turtles and although we caught several more yellow-bellied turtles, the 'good' species like Mobile cooters, Psuedemys concinna 'mobilensis' and of course the Barbour's map turtles, Graptemys barbouri were eluding us.
Not saying that Dick was razzing me or anything...

As Spring Creek nears its confluence with the Chipola it becomes significantly deeper and the treefalls and debris piles become larger. And more promising for turtles.
At one point I saw at least two superbly orange adult Mobile cooters slide off a downed oak tree and I was determined to capture them even if it meant swimming a hundred yards under the bank. So beaching my canoe up into some cypress knees I donned my mask for what seemed like the umpteenth time and swam back upstream to the debris pile.
By this time I was so cold that I had little, if any feeling in my limbs, so ducking down in the water and working my way under the submerged logs and limbs was routine. Until a ran into the giant clawed arm hanging down from under a tangle of huge tree limbs. My first thought was that is was simply a small alligator, a sight I've encountered a few times before.
But it was much more interesting than that. This time the arm was attached to a thick shell. How cool---a big Macrochelys!
I made repeated dives to ascertain where the head was located-- which is kind of important if one is going to grab an alligator snapping turtle. On about my third dive I could see his head pointing out towards the main channel of the creek. And I could also see his tail emerging up on the other side of the debris pile he was under. The good thing was that he was in a location that was relatively shallow behind him even though the bank dropped off sharply in front of him. This meant that I could come up behind him and get a grip on his tail while having my feet planted on the bottom.
The bad thing was that he was really wedged into and under some stout tree limbs which would make pulling him out backwards harder. Of course, I could have swam right up in front of him and tried to pull him out by his face...but that's something for that goofy Turtle Man on TV to do. That would be great for him to do. In fact, I'd watch Pay Per View to see him do it.
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yeah, I also called out to Dick who was upstream from me to come down and get his camera ready. As Dick paddled down towards me I worked myself back behind the turtle and got a firm grip on his tail and then pulled him backwards to a point where I could stand up as I caught him. The turtle responded by locking his front and rear legs onto all the limbs around him...and then pulling back against me.

This will give you an idea of the situation...

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While I was pulling the turtle out by the rear of his carapace and tail Dick was shouting encouragement, "Don't let go!" and "He's turning his head right toward your crotch!--- I'm not joking Carl, right at your crotch!"
A crotch bite from an alligator snapping turtle would make for an embarrassing hospital visit..."So you were just trying to catch this animal--- and nothing else? Right Mr. May?"

Finally we got to exchange greetings.

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A nice animal for sure!

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He really hated me

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In the photo below you can clearly see the modified appendage on his tongue that looks just like a big worm. These turtles have the ability to wriggle this thing in a way that looks exactly, and I do mean exactly like a living worm which is very effective a luring fish-- and even other turtles into their mouth. The millisecond that something touches the 'lure' the jaws explode shut.
This is also why the interior of the mouths of alligator snapping turtles are unique in that they are pigmented and camouflaged so that when the turtles gape and lure underwater no one is the wiser.

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Notice that the left side of nose has that deep gash? He also had some significant scars on the right side of his head which we figured were from another, presumably larger male. Also, it's difficult to see but there were numerous tiny leeches clustered up under each side of his nose. Very cool.
The yellow color is not enhanced. He really was sulphur yellow in places.

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This should give you an idea of the first part of the turtle I found...

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After Dick snapped (get it?) a bunch of photos, it was time to release him back to his creek.

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We guesstimated his weight to be between 50 to 60 pounds---which means that in the eventual retelling of this story he will weigh a solid 90 pounds. Maybe more. You know how these things work.
Barbie sure does.

Eventually Dick and I made our way down to the Chipola but by then the wind had picked up significantly and so there was even less chance of us seeing basking turtles. I couldn't blame them. Paddling along in wet clothes made for, as we put it, a chillarious experience.
There was something else that was working against us that day. The rains and flooding that had affected so much of the Carolinas and Georgia had also had an impact on the river. Just ten days before it had gone from 6 feet deep up at the Marianna gauge to 14.5 feet in just two days. Although the water levels had dropped down back to near normal, the water was still pretty murky and visibility in the Chipola was down to about 2 feet. So putting on a mask and diving in the river-- which is much deeper than Spring Creek wasn't productive.

This was about as close as we got to capturing anything else of interest.
A Mobile cooter taken with Dicks telephoto lens.

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A little closer...

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I put on my mask (and also fins) at one point after seeing what we thought were some Barbour's map turtles but when I got down to the bottom (the river was about 15 deep here) the visibility was near zero. The good thing was that unlike Spring Creek, the water in the Chipola River being a lot deeper is much, much colder. I just loved it.


The last turtle we caught that day was a newly hatched loggerhead musk turtle. But for me the trip had been made by the big snapper which was easily my largest to date. It had also been a gloriously beautiful day canoeing with kingfishers, pileated woodpeckers and red-shouldered hawks either flying overhead or chattering at us all day.
I was also happy to have been with my friend all day even if we didn't get the 'Target Species'.
Although he razzed me and made me promise to return in the spring for the coveted Barbour's map turtle, I'm pretty sure Dicky had a good time too.


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Or not. I'm never really sure with him.
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JakeScott
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by JakeScott »

Fantastic post, Carl.

Believe me, Dick had a good time. He wont stop talking about it! haha.

-Jake
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Noah M
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Noah M »

Sounds like you had a great time. I've never floated a river like that, nor gone snorkeling for turtles. Sounds like fun, even if its a bit chilly.
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Stohlgren
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Stohlgren »

Any trip with a Macrochelys is a good trip. The first (and still only) one I have personally snorkeled up I caught a glimpse of the tail around a boulder and thought was an alligator, too, until I saw the shell.

Interesting mud turtles. In southeastern Georgia, K. baurii are pretty easy to identify as they maintain pretty distinct stripes along the side of the head. They also have much darker skin then K. subrubrum.
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I was trying to see if K. subrubrum ever has that canthal stripe (it appears that they can) and noticed KW has a lot of Kinosternon photos from the panhandle on his flickr account labled as K. subrubrum that look an awful lot like K. baurii. If those actually are K. subrubrum, then I don't know how you would ever identify K. baurii in the panhandle other than genetics.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwray/728 ... DR-cUKd1U/
Carl D. May
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Carl D. May »

Stohlgren wrote:Any trip with a Macrochelys is a good trip. The first (and still only) one I have personally snorkeled up I caught a glimpse of the tail around a boulder and thought was an alligator, too, until I saw the shell.

Interesting mud turtles. In southeastern Georgia, K. baurii are pretty easy to identify as they maintain pretty distinct stripes along the side of the head. They also have much darker skin then K. subrubrum.
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I was trying to see if K. subrubrum ever has that canthal stripe (it appears that they can) and noticed KW has a lot of Kinosternon photos from the panhandle on his flickr account labled as K. subrubrum that look an awful lot like K. baurii. If those actually are K. subrubrum, then I don't know how you would ever identify K. baurii in the panhandle other than genetics.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwray/728 ... DR-cUKd1U/
Neat turtle Kevin. Agree completely about the skin color of the baurii in that region having darker skin too.
Looked at some of those animals on that Flickr link and they are indeed K. baurii. The standing idea is that subrubrum eventually becomes hippocrepis the further west one travels along the gulf coast towards Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. However, at least one turtle researcher has suggested that hippocrepis might in fact just be a western population of K. baurii with no carapace striping. The fact that panhandle (adults anyway) do not possess the carapace stripes seems to support this idea.
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Stohlgren
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Stohlgren »

Carl D. May wrote:However, at least one turtle researcher has suggested that hippocrepis might in fact just be a western population of K. baurii with no carapace striping. The fact that panhandle (adults anyway) do not possess the carapace stripes seems to support this idea.
Interesting. In my very limited search effort, it was only in hippocrepis that I noticed the canthal stripe. If it were the case that hippocrepis is really baurii, then the canthal stripe could be a pretty diagnostic characteristic.
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walk-about
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by walk-about »

Carl D. May,

What an exceptional post sir!! This will be worth seconds and thirds for me this weekend when I have more time and I can not wait!! You are a great writer and your descriptions of the area and that day are vividly lucid. Beautiful images and specimens and of course you and Dick Bartlett. Pretty awesome. That big male Alligator Snapper is stunning!! Thank you so much for posting this.

Dave
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Too....much....awesome.

Wowza what a post! Interesting stuff on the mud turtles. Great find with that alligator snapper too! I would be so thrilled!

Thanks for taking us along. It sounds like it was quite the trip.
--Berkeley
Grover Brown
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Grover Brown »

Carl,

Needless to say, this post had me on the edge of my seat.

Looks like a grand time out on the river. That Macro is really something else! Both in size and appearance, that sulfur color is amazing. And that mud turtle has been put through the ringer. Did it have mobility in its back legs? Whatever caused that damage must have severed the spinal cord, right? What a trooper. And it also makes me really happy the appreciation you have for sliders too. I still love catching them.

I've struggled with those Kino pictures on Flickr as well, and I'm really glad you brought those up Kevin. I was actually just chatting with a friend about those recently, and he told me he thought they were baurii as well. baurii certainly warrants further genetic studies, and I haven't heard of the idea of hippocrepis as being a western variety of baurii, that's really interesting.

I've not had the best luck with Kinosternon around here actually. And I've had even less luck photographing them. We are supposed to only have K. subrubrum subrubrum here in Southish Mississippi, but this one was trying to have a canthal strip. It's coming up from the lower jaw though and not behind the eye. So there seems to be some hippocrepis (or baurii?!) influence. :P

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What are the characteristics you look for in the abdominal scutes? I found this monster female not far from the above male.
I think she had lost most facial coloration, she was also painfully shy and the other guys I was with weren't keen on being chewed up by mosquitos trying to photograph a mud turtle. Her plastron was neat though. (I have weirdly big hands, I promise this girl was pushing 5'')

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Cool post, great discussion, thanks!

Grover
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Stohlgren
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Stohlgren »

Grover Brown wrote:baurii certainly warrants further genetic studies, and I haven't heard of the idea of hippocrepis as being a western variety of baurii, that's really interesting.
You'll need a PhD project before too long, right?

Your female looks like a typical subrubrum to me, but that male is interesting. You can get subrubrum and baurii in the same bodies of water, so maybe it is some kind of baurii/hippocrepis thing that has gone undetected. We'll never know unless somebody gets some genetics going.
Carl D. May
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Re: On the River With an Old Friend

Post by Carl D. May »

Stohlgren wrote:
Grover Brown wrote:baurii certainly warrants further genetic studies, and I haven't heard of the idea of hippocrepis as being a western variety of baurii, that's really interesting.
You'll need a PhD project before too long, right?

Your female looks like a typical subrubrum to me, but that male is interesting. You can get subrubrum and baurii in the same bodies of water, so maybe it is some kind of baurii/hippocrepis thing that has gone undetected. We'll never know unless somebody gets some genetics going.

Agree. Someone needs to clarify all of this. That first turtle of Grover's with the dark skin from Southish Mississippi looks like a hippocrepis to me but then...who knows?
I showed Dale Jackson the photos of the Spring Creek animals and he tended to agree that they were baurii.
Also, John Iverson mentioned that baurii typically posses a 'groove in the plastron at the bridge' like this big female from Spring Creek had a the femoral scutes.

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Incidentally, she seemed to be perfectly OK in her movements when we released her. Now I sort of wish I held onto her for a while to study her more.
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