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Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Western Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta)

Here's another Victoria resident that many of us have never seen, the Western Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta). This one lives at the Swan Lake nature Sanctuary and was basking in some spring sunshine on the edge of the lake when I took this photo. There are only about a dozen species of reptiles in British Columbia so I felt a little privileged to see this turtle. It was quite large, about the size of a small dinner platter.

4 comments:

Dean Lewis said...

Turtles are kool,
living dinosaurs !

paolo said...

very nice !

JoJo said...

Aw! I love turkles! Got to see some at Northwest Trek last year, basking on the logs in the pond.

Mike Laplante said...

Aach! I've been over there about a half-dozen times in the last month to try and get a photo of a turtle in the wild.

By the way, did you see the one they keep in the tank in the nature centre? It will actually 'follow' you around the tank - presumably waiting for food, I guess.

Tomorrow's photo features bees from their fascinating bee colony and some of their other "captive" critters.