The Spotted Turtle : Pond Turtle 



Melanemys guttatus (Shuf.) 

 By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt 



Formerly our well-known little Pond or Spotted Turtle, together 

 with Muhlenberg's and the Western Pond Turtles, were arrayed 

 with the Wood Terrapin of the northeastern United States in a 

 genus Chelopus. Now the three first-named species are all aquatic 

 by habit, while the Wood Terrapin is a terrestrial form, living in 

 damp woods, and very rarely entering the water. Add to these 

 facts the entirely different structure of these black pond turtles — 

 as compared with the corresponding characters in Chelopus 

 insculptus — and it should be evident to any herpetologist that we 

 have here two genera instead of one. Convinced of this fact, the 

 writer has, in another connection, suggested the name of Melanemys 

 for a genus to contain the three pound turtles, while the Wood 

 Terrapin may still be known as Chelopus insculptus. 



Ever since the summer of 1865, the writer has, at different times, 

 had in his possession living specimens of our familiar little Spotted 

 Pond Turtle (Melanemys guttatus), and a very pretty female one 

 is at hand at the present time. This individual was taken by a 

 boy collector in Virginia in June, 1919, and on the tenth of the 

 following month it laid a pure white, ellipsoidal egg. This was 

 repeated on two subsequent dates — on the 24th and 26th of the 

 same month. The turtle and the three eggs were soon thereafter 

 photographed by the writer, and reproductions of the photographs 

 are shown in the figure — the eggs being reduced one-fifth, and the 

 turtle reduced somewhat more. Later, these three eggs were 

 accepted by the United States National Museum for the collection 

 in that institution. 



Eggs of our pond turtles are found from time to time; but it is 

 not easy to tell the species that laid them. In the present instance, 

 however, the diagnosis is absolutely certain, as no other turtles 

 were in the aquarium at the time they were found there on the 

 above dates. 



All turtles lay soft -shelled eggs, and those of some of the big 

 marine species and a few other forms, are quite round in form. 



Our Spotted Turtle has a smooth shell or carapace, flat below and 

 rounded above, the outline being more or less elliptical or oval. 

 No part of its borders are serrated or toothed, as we find them to be 



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