Their diet includes living or dead small animals like fish, bugs, crayfish, worms, green algae, and eelgrass. Their non-meat diet includes many of the small aquatic plants easily available in their immediate surroundings. During cold winters these cooters can go on living underwater in rivers and ponds for around 160 days without anything to eat.
What does a river cooter eat?
Feeding/Diet: River cooters are herbivorous and feed upon aquatic plants. Activity/Behavior: River cooters are conspicuous basking turtles.
Are eastern river cooters good pets?
Eastern River Cooters can be amazing pets as long as you are ready for their large size. These turtles are easy to maintain, have a gentle and calm temperament, and a good-natured personality. They are also very healthy creatures, so the likelihood of going to the vets is very low.
Are river cooter turtles good pets?
River cooters are commonly sold as pets along with other aquatics, i.e. red-ear sliders and map turtles. Hardy, and easy to keep as juveniles, these turtles become too large for most home aquariums. The genus Pseudemys includes several species of cooters and red-bellied turtles. Pseudemys concinna is the species known as the River Cooter.
Where do river cooters live?
River cooters are found from Virginia south to central Georgia, west to eastern Texas, Oklahoma, and north to southern Indiana. They live in a wide variety of freshwater and even brackish locations.
What should I feed my cooter?
Food and Water: River Cooters are omnivores. Their diet should consist of a mix of pelleted turtle food, crickets, mealworms, and leafy greens such as romaine, collard, and turnip greens.
How often should you feed river cooter?
three times a weekFood and Water You may also feed adult river cooters other greens like lettuce, which they can easily digest. Adult river cooters are fed three times a week, and hatchlings should be given food every day.
What can you feed Cooter turtles?
Food and Water Most cooter turtles are omnivores. They eat small animals like crustaceans, worms, and fish, and plants including algae, aquatic foliage, and even vegetables like carrots and spinach. Juvenile cooter turtles prefer protein-rich meals that they can find easily in the wild.
Can river cooter turtles eat celery?
One question often asked by concerned turtle keepers is if turtles can eat celery. The answer is yes, turtles can eat celery. However, it's important to know that celery doesn't provide the essential nutrition turtles need to stay healthy.
How do you care for a Eastern river cooter?
In captivity, cooters need an aquatic habitat, with a dry basking area. They need a warming light and UVB radiation (from reptilelights or direct sunshine). As juveniles, they can be kept in a 20- or 30-gallon long tank, but they will outgrow those accommodations, and need a very large tank or outdoor pond.
How do you tell if a river cooter is a boy or girl?
2:149:33How to Tell if My Turtle is Male or Female - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSuch as your sliders or your Cooter's a really good way to tell is going to be their nails. So maleMoreSuch as your sliders or your Cooter's a really good way to tell is going to be their nails. So male sliders and Cooter's actually have a really really long claws.
Can Cooter turtles eat bananas?
Along with that they can be fed aquatic plants (such as Water Lilies, Water Hyacinth, Duckweed, Anacharis, Water Lettuce, Water Fern, Pondweed, Water starwort, Hornwort, Water milfoil, and Frogbit), vegetables (such as Zucchini, Squash, Collard Greens, Beet Leaves, Endive, Romaine, Red Leaf Lettuce, Kale, Escarole, ...
What kind of fruit can I give my turtle?
Fruit should be fed more sparingly than vegetables, since they are often preferred by box turtles over vegetables and tend to be less nutritious. Fruits to offer include apples, pears, bananas (with skin), mango, grapes, star fruit, raisins, peaches, tomato, guava, kiwis, and melons. Fruits that are particularly ...
What is safe to feed turtles?
Animal food sources. Animal-based food sources for turtles can include processed pet foods like drained sardines, turtle pellets, and trout chow. You can also feed them cooked chicken, beef, and turkey. Live prey can include moths, crickets, shrimp, krill, feeder fish, and worms.
Can tortoises eat celery?
Is Celery Safe for Tortoises? Celery itself is not harmful to tortoises and they can eat them in small amounts. The main issue with celery is that it has a strong taste many tortoises will not want to eat. It can also be tough to chew, and small tortoises may struggle to eat celery properly.
Can yellow belly slider turtles eat celery?
Diet: The hatchlings are more carnivorous than the adults, they prefer more meats, like shrimp that you can get at the pet store rather then the pellets. The adults eat a verity of veggies like carrots, and celery etc.
Can turtles have carrots?
Shredded carrots, squash, and zucchini are great foods that turtles can eat, too. You can also go with edible aquatic vegetation such as water lettuce, water hyacinth, and duckweed. “For fruits, consider shredded apples and melons, as well as chopped berries,” recommends Dr.
Can turtles eat bananas?
One food you might consider feeding your turtle is a banana. Can turtles, including the ever-popular box turtle, eat bananas? Yes, bananas are a safe food for box turtles and other turtles as well, but they should only be fed in moderation.
What is a river cooter?
The name “cooter” may have come from an African word “kuta” which means “turtle. Identification. The river cooter is a large (12-16″ carapace) freshwater turtle. The carapace is rather flat, not highly domed. It is brown or olive with yellow/cream markings, which vary according to subspecies.
Where is the Hieroglyphic River Cooter?
P. c. hieroglyphica (Hieroglyphic River Cooter) from western Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and western Georgia. The carapace is intricately patterned and there is an indentation on the bridge. Plastral pattern is well developed.
Do cooters have a broader tail?
Males have a broader tail and may have a slightly concave plastron. Females tend to grow larger than males. Ernst, Lovich and Barbour (1994) lists five geographically based subspecies. P. c. concinna (Eastern River Cooter) from Virginia to extreme northern Florida (The pictured individual is P. c. concinna.)
Do turtles eat yogurt?
Reptiles do not utilize milk products at any stage of their lives, and lack the enzymes to break down lactose. So do not feed cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products to your turtles. 2.) Canned and other processed foods often are very high in salt and other preservatives.
Do wild turtles need supplements?
Supplementation isn’t necessary if enough variety is used in the diet. (After all, no one provides vitamins for the wild turtles, and they tend to be healthier than captives.) You can read about the complicated relationships between calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D3 and other elements at several websites.
Do river cooters like to bask?
Behavior. River cooters enjoy basking on logs or sun-warmed rocks, and are frequently found in the company of other aquatic basking turtles (sliders and painteds) sometimes piled up on top of each other. All are quick to slip into the water if disturbed.
Where do river cooters live?
Distribution. River cooters are found from Virginia south to central Georgia, west to eastern Texas, Oklahoma, and north to southern Indiana. They live in a wide variety of freshwater and even brackish locations. Rivers, lakes, ponds and tidal marshes with heavy vegetation provide ideal habitat.
How do river cooters breathe?
One particularly distinctive feature of River cooters is that they have the ability to breathe underwater through a sac called the cloaca bursae which is based on their tail. This allows them to stay underwater for extended periods of time and makes their behavior harder to study.
How big is a river cooter?
LENGTH. 23-33 cm. The River cooter is a species of freshwater turtle native to the central and eastern United States. The name "cooter" may have come from an African word "kuta" which means "turtle" in the Bambara and Malinké languages, brought to America by African slaves. River cooters are relatively large turtles.
What color is a river cooter?
River cooters are relatively large turtles. Their carapace (upper shell) is typically dark greenish-brown usually with a "C" marking facing the posterior. The plastron (bottom shell) is yellow to reddish-orange with a dark pattern between scutes that follows the scute seams (this fades with age).
Is the River Cooter a LC?
Currently, this species is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List.
Where do river cooters live?
Habitat/Range: River cooters are found in rivers and large streams. Distinguishing the river cooter from the other two species of Pseudemys is often best done based upon habitat. Florida cooters usually inhabit wetlands, marshes, ponds, and other still water bodies. In North Carolina, Redbelly turtles are restricted to coastal areas.
What color are Florida cooters?
Florida cooters lack “C” shaped markings, and redbelly turtles have reddish or orange underside and reddish ventricle bars on the carapace.
What temperature should a cooter turtle be?
For young and adult cooter turtles, the temperature must be anywhere between 75 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit or 23 to 25 degrees Celsius.
Where do cooter turtles live?
Geographic Range. Cooter turtles are more common in North America. These turtles often exist in the central and eastern portions of the US. They exist in northern Ohio up to northern Florida in the south. The distribution of cooter turtles is from eastern Virginia to eastern and westward Texas.
How long do cooter turtles stay dormant?
While those cooter turtles live in warm regions stay active during winter, their counterparts living in colder areas become dormant during the season in 1 to 2 months. Hibernating cooter turtles don’t breathe throughout this period when their metabolism slows down.
Why do cooter turtles have a flatter shell?
Those cooter turtles that acclimatize to develop a flatter shell to prevent it from dislodging from their physique generally have weaker shells compared to other turtles with a dome-shaped shell.
How big is a cooter turtle?
As they grow old, these markings get darker and darker. Fully grown cooter turtles have longer shells – the biggest one can be 43.7 cm long. In general, adult cooter turtles have oval-shaped, elongated, and flattened shells with dark and light brown markings.
When do cooter turtle eggs hatch?
The eggs of female cooter turtles are ellipsoidal, around 1 ½ inches long. The eggs will hatch in between August and September. There were reports of the delayed laying of eggs during winter and hatching during spring.
Do cooter turtles eat animals?
Food. While cooter turtles are herbivores, they can also eat animals – alive or dead. Their diet seems to depend on what type of food is available. While these turtles seem to refuse when offered with meat, their predatory behavior becomes more noticeable in this scenario.
