It seems to be a good year for aquatic turtles in mid Missouri. Our visits to the Forum Nature Center, in Columbia, have turned up a large number of small painted turtles and red-eared sliders this season; local flooding may have drawn some of these reptiles from more permanent lakes and ponds in the area.
After wintering in the muddy bottoms of lakes and ponds, aquatic turtles emerge by April and mate in mid spring. Pregnant females leave the water in June to lay six to thirty eggs in a depression that they dig near the shoreline (larger, older females generally lay the most eggs). If not eaten by raccoons or other scavengers, the young turtles hatch in mid-late August and head for the water. Over the first few years, they are primarily carnivorous, feasting on insects, other invertebrates and small fish; as they mature, they become omnivorous, adding carrion and aquatic plants to their diet. Those that do not fall prey to herons, mink, otters, snakes, large fish or snapping turtles will reach sexual maturity in 5-6 years.
Painted turtles and red-eared sliders are common throughout much of the Midwest, especially along the primary river valleys. Like most of their cousins, they enjoy basking on logs or mats of vegetation; active from late March into October, they may also surface during prolonged warm spells in the winter months.
