#blanding's turtle

[herpsandbirds]

Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii), family Emydidae, Wisconsin, USA

ENDANGERED.

T - hatchling, M - young adult, B - adult

photographs by Mike Day

[vintagewildlife]

Blanding's turtle By: Unknown photographer From: Zoological Society Bulletin, Vol XXII, No. 2 1919

[rjzimmerman]

Scientists team up in ‘unparalleled’ effort to protect Illinois’ endangered turtles from increasing threats

Loss of wetlands, changes in habitat hydrology from dams and agricultural tile drainage, viruses, and poaching put turtle population at risk

Matt Allender, a clinical associate professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine at the University of Illinois and the director of the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab, holds a Blanding's turtle during Blanding's Bowl week on June 22, 2026. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

A Blanding's turtle. Looks happy, right?

Common snapping turtle. This guy looks pissed off.

Painted turtle. This one......curious.

Excerpt from this story from the Chicago Tribune:

Over the squelching and sloshing of waders and the eggy smell of shallow wetland waters, Matt Allender bent down and caught something in his hand. He raised it triumphantly.

“Found a turtle!”

It’s a snapping one, and it does just that; it snaps at him, unhappy about being grabbed.

It was in 2015 — when all the equipment he had fit in a tackle box and the only help he had was a part-time vet student — that Allender, now the director of conservation biology at Brookfield Zoo, began heading out to Lake County every year to tend to turtles in the wild. They would do some blood work and test for a few diseases.

In the years since, as science has uncovered more threats, viruses and bacteria affecting turtles, these field visits have become longer and more complex.

This June, Allender was joined by more than 20 people, mostly veterinarians, in a yearly “Blanding’s Bowl” — a friendly competition that splits scientists from multiple institutions, including the Cook and Lake County forest preserves, into several teams to tend to native species such as the painted turtle, the common snapping turtle and the event namesake, the state-endangered Blanding’s turtle, of which fewer than 500 are left in Illinois.

“So now it’s quite the operation,” Allender said. “We’re doing something special, and people want to be a part of that.”

The groups found a total of 50 different Blanding’s turtles over four days.

“For an endangered turtle, that’s pretty remarkable,” said Gary Glowacki, manager of conservation ecology at the Lake County Forest Preserves District.

The scientists strategically set more than 100 traps across wetland and prairie habitats in the county, and inside placed sardines, cat food or store-bought salmon to lure the turtles. (One biologist believes the tinned fish make the best bait when coated in sriracha.) They then returned to the site every morning for three days to check up on their patients and release them.

And the fanfare was visible among the scientists, some of whom wore turtle earrings and custom-made T-shirts. But the primary focus of the bowl is to offer healthcare to turtles in the wild, Allender said. “We’re their doctors. Nobody else is doing this.”

“The fact that we’re able to, in three and a half days, assess the health of one of the state’s most endangered turtles is pretty amazing,” he said in a follow-up call with the Tribune. “We won’t have a lot of those test results for several months, but the effort in order to get (them) is really unparalleled anywhere else in the country.”

Glowacki said the same.

“There’s not many people that are experts in the health and wellness of wild turtles, and they’re right in our backyard,” he said.

[brain-rot-see-pinned-post]

I'm not picking up a 4th fic. I'm not.

Absolutely not!

Buuuuut that doesn't mean I can't theorize...

Anyway here's what I think the missing bro might look like. If I were to expand upon my fic idea for him. Which I'm not. But here he is anyway.

Base by @kittpunk144

Meet: William (Draxum named him after the namesake of the blanding's turtle: William Blanding. Because Draxum is many things but creative is not one of them.)

Species: Blanding's Turtle

Age: 17 (Same as Raph)

Height: 5'9" (4" taller than Leo, 3" shorter than Raph)

Fun facts:

The shape of blanding's turtles beaks make them look like they're perpetually smiling. I'm calling it resting uwu face. People find it disarming, and our boy definitely uses that to his advantage.

He always looks like he's smiling. He is not always smiling. Do not assume he is happy.

Blanding's turtles shells are hinged like a box-turtles, though they don't close as tightly. So much like Mikey, our boy can easily retreat into his shell whenever needed. Though he prefers to use his extra space for storage.

He keeps a lot of knives hidden in his shell.

His colours, outside of his bright yellow markings, are dark and muted. With long shorts, a t-shirt, and a half-mask to cover his markings he can easily blend into dark environments.

As well as his prominent chin/throat stripe, he has 3 yellow markings on his shell, similar in size and shape to Leo's but with additional inward spikes. He also has small to medium yellow spots on the underside of his upper arms and inner thighs.

Draxum mainly used him for fact finding mission in alternate dimensions, where he would stay for 1-2 years before coming back. As a result he is very good at getting along with people on a surface level, but struggles with deeper long-term relationships. He can code-switch on the fly to suit almost any situation but handles changes close to home very poorly.

His weapons of choice are knives, mostly thrown. He wasn't raised by a ninja so his knives are distinctly european/western. Just like all the turtles he is a dangerous opponent, but he's very slow to resort to violence. Fighting people rarely gets him the information he wants.

Because of his appearance and skillset he winds up being a different kind of faceman to Leo. Quiet and disarming to Leo's loud and boastful. He prefers to listen instead of speak, which makes him great at gathering information. He's also very good at drawing accurate inferences from minimal information, but not so great at putting that information to more practical uses. He's a thinker, not a planner.

I don't think Leo will like him very much. Or possibly will view him as some kind of faceman rival? He definitely won't like that William is taller than him.

Mikey will have fun coming up with new names for him, since "'William' doesn't really fit with the whole Mad Dogs vibe, y'know?"

If he were to ever pick up a mask it would be yellow, same with his ninpo if he ever unlocks that. No clue about his powers tho.

[lizardsaredinosaurs]

Eh? What's that smell, you say? What could you possibly mean? Heh. Heh. Heh.

Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii)

Eastern USA and Canada

Status: Endangered

Threats: habitat fragmentation, nest predation

----

I have no idea if turtles can fart, but his dad-smirk looked suspicious.

request for @walk-down-to-the-end-with-me (sorry for the caption XD)

[asteryote]

So lately, I've been working a lot with Ontario turtles as part of my summer job, so here's my little tribute to them.

Remember the wip I showed earlier? It's finally done!

So on the top of the stack is a painted turtle, one of the more common freshwater turtles.

Beneath it is a Blanding's turtle, which is endangered in Canada. They are identifiable by their yellow chin and dome-shaped shell that resembles a soldier's helmet.

At the very bottom, there is a common snapping turtle: Canada's largest turtle. Contrary to popular belief, a bite from one of these large turtles won't take your finger, but it'll definitely hurt, and will break skin.

Sadly, all these turtles (as well as all others found in Canada) are at risk. Wild turtles also suffer from poaching/pet trade, habitat loss and road mortality, which is especially true during the nesting season, because they are drawn to roadsides, and need to cross the roads to get to their nesting spots. Most turtles reach sexual maturity at least ~20 years in their life, meaning that it won't be until decades later that a turtle can replace itself in the population.

Fortunately, there have been turtle monitoring programs that have been put in place to help the turtles out (I'm actually on the ground helping out with one of these programs myself!). Conservation scientists are now more focused on tracking the movements and health of turtles in a population by using shell notches and radio tagging. They also try to protect all nests they can identify, and incubate eggs that have been salvaged from gravid turtles that have been killed on the roads. There are willdife rehab centres dedicated to helping injured turtles recover. And although turtles recover slowly from their injuries, their survival rate in wildife rehab centres are extremely high!

If you ever see a turtle on a highway, consider pulling over if it's safe, and help the turtle cross the road, if you can. There are many great online videos that can instruct you how to do this! I'll link you some good ones when I find them.

If I got any information wrong here, feel free to contact me so I don't accidentally spread any misinformation!

[xanaxconversations]

I hope you also had the chance to spend earth day outdoors.

[the-ectotherm-club]

Found a Blanding's turtle at the local nature preserve. I'm assuming she was on her way to lay some eggs, since she was wandering away from the pond.

She did get a very gentle shell boop, once I confirmed she wasn't a snapping turtle. She did not particularly enjoy the shell boop, but I left her alone after that.