38 Michael E. Seidel 



evidence of ripe (shelled) eggs. One of these females, dissected on 9 July, 

 contained no oviducal eggs. A second female held in laboratory depos- 

 ited eight eggs 10-21 July, three of which were incubated at 30-35° C in 

 moist vermiculite. Two hatched on 4 September and the third was 

 apparently infertile. Unlike P. rubriventris the two hatchlings have yel- 

 low plastrons, and unlike P. floridana the plastrons are extensively pat- 

 terned (Fig. 2). Dark markings also appear on the ventral surface of each 

 marginal (submarginal) and throughout the bridge. These hatchlings 

 and adults, maintained in laboratory and offered a wide variety of food 

 for three months, were entirely herbivorous. A juvenile P. concinna 

 (UMMZ 88488, fluid preserved), collected 3.2 km east of Hinton in the 

 Greenbrier River (near its junction with the New River below Bluestone 

 Reservoir), Summers County, West Virginia, has markings nearly iden- 

 tical to the Bluestone hatchlings. This fluid preserved specimen, pre- 

 sumably overlooked by other investigators, was taken in 1934 (collector 

 unknown) and confirms the presence of cooters in the New River system 

 prior to the construction of Bluestone. Dam, 1942-1949. Thus, the 

 hypothesis presented by Bayless (1972) that the impoundment created 

 new habitat necessary for establishment of an introduced population 

 can be dismissed. Further evidence for a relatively long natural history 

 of Pseudemys in the New River comes from examination of turtle bones 

 recovered from an archeological site (46SU3, Fort Ancient Village 1 100- 

 1300 AD) at Bluestone Reservoir (Applegarth et al. 1978). A peripheral 

 ACE FS2-81, pleural ACE FS2-183, and hypoplastron FS1-68 were 

 identified as Pseudemys cf. P. concinna by Dale R. Jackson (pers. 

 comm.). 



DISCUSSION 

 The cooter species P. concinna and P. floridana have had a long, 

 confused taxonomic history. Following LeConte's (1830) original des- 

 criptions, Carr (1935, 1952) considered P. concinna and P. floridana a 

 conspecific assemblage of eight subspecies under P. floridana. However, 

 Carr (1952) commented that at least the Florida races, P.f peninsularis 

 and P. f suwanniensis, were broadly sympatric and behaved as separate 

 biological species. Crenshaw (1955) partitioned the cooters, recognizing 

 both P. concinna and P. floridana. A major weakness of Crenshaw's 

 conclusion is that it was based primarily on relationships between Flor- 

 ida forms, without a thorough understanding of ecological and morpho- 

 logical relationships of populations elsewhere. Another criticism of 

 Crenshaw's work is that it relied heavily on highly variable characters 

 such as markings and pigmentation, which may show greater variation 

 within a population than between species. These phenotypic characters 

 may also be subject to strong environmental influence. Mount (1975) 

 reported that the color of markings fades rapidly in captive P. concinna 

 and concluded that pigmentation in cooters has little systematic value. 



