Althouse: Getting Into the Weeds/Or: Even a Turtle Can Be Slowed Down.

June 20, 2026

Getting Into the Weeds/Or: Even a Turtle Can Be Slowed Down.

18 comments:

Darles Chickens said...: He was looking pretty spry until he got into the foliage.; 6/20/26, 7:57 AM
Iman said...: …spry until he went all Cocaine Mitch into the weeds…; 6/20/26, 8:03 AM
Aggie said...: The sidewalk was too hot. It's been a year for those red-eared sliders, though. I keep coming across them in the woods and the back yard. The dogs keep sniffing in a friendly outreach, but the turtle's ain't having it.; 6/20/26, 8:18 AM
Not an oldster. said...: No... Accolade Me! tag... ? Lol; 6/20/26, 8:35 AM
Peachy said...: He is very agile.; 6/20/26, 8:40 AM
rhhardin said...: Cartoon, two snails on the back of a turtle. "Hold on! Here we go!"; 6/20/26, 9:13 AM
James said...: Almost certainly on its way to lay some eggs. Turtles of the future, live strong!; 6/20/26, 9:28 AM
bagoh20 said...: We had a red-eared slider in our pond for about the last 6 years. She started out the size of quarter, but got up to about 10 inches long. Recently she kept leaving the pond as apparently they try to lay eggs in the dirt even without a male around. The ground gets hot enough here to fry an egg, so I kept returning her to the pond. Eventually she left and we can't find her now. It's been really hot, and there is no way she survived. I do notice that the fish seem happier without her.; 6/20/26, 9:43 AM
Quaestor said...: Pond slider (Trachemys scripta). There are at least three subspecies and numerous hybrids. Though the pond sliders are the dominate semiaquatic turtle species east of the Great Plains, they aren't suppose to live north of Latitude 40°. Is this evidence of ManBearPig on the rampage? Or someone's former pet.

I kept a large adult pod slider as a pet when I was nine or ten. Judging by his carapace ridges. I estimated his age to exceed 20 years. I fed him minnows from a local bait shop and housed him in one of those rigid plastic kiddie pools with a large rock in the center for basking. During the night my mother insisted on bringing him onto our back porch where "George T. Terrapin" would be safe from night predators. Though I returned him to the wild after one winter, the experience taught me how intelligent and emotionally complex these "laconic" reptiles can be.; 6/20/26, 10:09 AM
Quaestor said...: Pond, not pod. Dammit.; 6/20/26, 10:11 AM
Eva Marie said...: Turtle eating lettuce
https://youtube.com/shorts/3kfnYNq_kzk?is=UUdQ156Q-PFha3lL; 6/20/26, 10:52 AM
Quaestor said...: I was never able to classify George precisely. What subspecies was he? There are two races in the Southeast with overlapping ranges, the yellow-bellied slider and the Cumberland slider. The lower Mississippi Valley is dominated by the red-eared variety, T. s. elegans. These are the pond sliders most familiar to Americans because of their popularity in the pet trade. George resembled a red-eared slider, except everywhere T. s. elegans is marked in red, George was marked in yellow. I have come to the hypothesis that my pet was a xanthochromistic mutant. Xanthism inhibits the ability of an animal to assimilate carotenoids, resulting in red pigmentation being replaced with a vibrant lemon-yellow color, and is well-documented in certain birds, particularly the northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis).

Meade’s turtle looks like a yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta scripta). If so-called anthropogenic climate change is responsible for pond sliders colonizing Wisconsin, then it would be the red-eared variety doing the colonizing because that is the most western subspecies, not the yellow-bellied sliders, which are confined to Atlantic side of the continent. Therefore, this is an introduced specimen, not a climate migrant.; 6/20/26, 11:10 AM
Quaestor said...: That was really funny, Eva Marie!

But it's tortoises that eat greens. Turtles are meat-eaters. They like little ducklings, especially. Conan is an idiot.; 6/20/26, 11:19 AM
steve uhr said...: I think it’s a painted turtle. Wisconsin state reptile. Why do folks think it’s a slider?; 6/20/26, 2:23 PM
Quayle said...: Probably stopped to wait for the train.; 6/20/26, 5:40 PM
john mosby said...: yellow-bellied slider sounds like something Biden calls an insufficiently deferential citizen in a town hall. CC, JSM; 6/20/26, 7:49 PM
Big Mike said...: The turtle has learned — probably from close calls — to cross paved areas as quickly as possible. Reptiles are smarter than our mammalian brains give them credit for.; 6/20/26, 8:31 PM
Big Mike said...: The turtle has learned — probably through multiple close calls — to move as quickly as its legs will take across paved areas. Its pace reverts to normal on grass because it has never been menaced by motor vehicles on grass.; 6/20/26, 8:35 PM