Hannah

facinating animal! I work with Blandings- would like to know more about these hybrids!

This animal is basically a Wood Turtle that has
carapace markings resembling the Blanding's,
and a much longer neck than the Wood. On land,
it thinks it's a Wood Turtle (it can eat and swallow
on land), and in the water it thinks it's a Blanding's
Turtle (when swallowing, it makes that "lunging"
motion typical of the Blanding's). It's extremely
hardy and pugnacious- at a very young age the
hybrids had to be separated because they were
chewing each other's tails off- I don't think ANY of
them have complete tails. Now that I've had Hannah
for over three months, my opinion is that the hybrid
is more like the Wood Turtle than the Blanding's,
in terms of behavior. Like I said, it's basically a
Wood turtle that resembles the Blanding's, and that
resemblance is mostly in the markings on the carapace.
The big question, of course, will be, can this hybrid
reproduce again with it's own, and/or with either of the
parent species? We won't know that until the first
generation reaches maturity, and a clutch of fertile eggs
is actually produced.



Hybrid Update, 4/19/04. "Hannah" has since proven to be a male, and has been renamed "Hank". In the two '02 photos, Hank was 5 1/4" long. Now he's 6 3/4", and still growing. This animal is incredibly alert and intelligent, and endowed with a fascinating behavior. Jim Harding reports that, of the 18 surviving individuals, so far all appear to be male, even though the third of three clutches of eggs was incubated at a higher temp, hoping to produce females. There is one specimen, maintained by a mutual friend, that has not yet tested positive for "male". As to the fertility of this hybrid, only time will tell.