This week for Flora and Fauna Friday we have a secretive, jewel encrusted reptile on display; except it’s not the long and rattling one, it’s the round and bony one. This week we’re gazing upon the Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin).
Between the cast of a shrimp net a chaotic bobbing on the upstream surface makes itself known. A hypnotic shell of swirling circles within circles aggravates your eye. It begs attention to a turtle. A turtle with pearly-white skin of an almost luminescent alien glow radiates between pluff mud polka dots and tiger stripes. A wide grin through thick peachy-lips of hardened bone smiles back at you. It scuttles along the bank beside your feet before careening down an inlet and out of site. Clutching your net you stand dazed with awe. A wondrous sight few see but none forget. Today’s turtle is extra special. Not only is it unreal in its beauty but it’s become adapted to life in the briny drink entirely separate from Sea Turtles.
The Diamondback Terrapin is a typical size for a Pond Turtle, usually a hand span or less in length. Females are far larger with a more robust head. A Terrapin’s shell is flat and furrowed along concentric circles within the scutes. Rings of gray, tan, and black alternating like a hypnotist’s wheel. Their skin is a milky-white with a wash of sky-blue. It’s flecked with uncountable black speckles and splotches from webbed toe-tip to their broad smirking mouth. That grin is a beak made of peachy-yellow bone. Terrapins use that beak for meal prep. They’re a carnivorous species with a preference for shellfish. A female’s over-sized chompers are perfect for crushing periwinkles, fiddler crabs, mummichogs, shrimp, mussels, fingers, and grasshoppers. Males prefer the softer options in the salt marsh.
Diamondback Terrapins have salt glands that they use to expel excess salt from their body. This allows them to drink and live in saltwater without dehydrating. They’re far more efficient than Alligators at this but not as adept as Sea Turtles. So Terrapins stick to tidal ecosystems where the salinity is lower. Here in our tidal creeks they spend their lives crunching crabs and flailing about oyster reefs mostly hidden from the view of humans beneath the sediment saturated saltwater. However, in May females come ashore to lay their eggs. Your best chance to see a Terrapin is as she makes her way onto a nearby causeway or hammock island to nest.
Diamondback Terrapins were historically harvested to make turtle soup. Centuries of harvests have taken their toll on our turtle. Turtle soup has fallen out of favor but commercial crabbing became a new threat. Terrapins like to eat crustaceans and crab traps are designed to funnel critters in but not out. Thus, Terrapins often get caught in crab traps and drown. They received some government protections against collection in recent decades but their populations are still critically low. If you crab, please equip your traps with Bycatch Reduction Devices. They keep big Terrapins out and make it easier for small turtles to escape.
