Awesome Geckos

Shell Care

The turtle in the picture is one of my Craig's List "rescues", The Gulf Coast Integrade. She has some shell damage and possible old inactive shell rot. It's nothing terribly serious at this point, but to be safe, her shell was scrubbed with Betadine (by my friend Jerry). This removes any sort of dirt or other foreign matter that may be trapped in the grooves of the shell, and kills harmful bacteria.

Hard Shell.... lovin'

This seems like a pretty awkward act with such a hard exterior, but they get it done!

Beautiful Snakes

Xenodermis javanicus

Bothriechis schleglii

Lampropeltis elapsoides

Morelia viridis

Aspidites melanocephalus

Gecko Breeder

This guy has some amazing species. If you're looking for geckos, check him out.

http://www.ddreptiles.net/projects.html

Turtles Tales: The Gulf Coast Integrade

She doesn't have a name. I just call her "The Gulf Coast Integrade". I got her from a Craig's List post that said something along the lines of "Help! My roommate abandoned a turtle and I think it's dying!" I drove out to West Seattle to get her. She wasn't dying, but she was set up all wrong, had a lot of shell damage, and a severely overgrown beak. She wasn't able to eat anymore, her beak was so overgrown. The picture above is from after her beak trim, at which point in time she became the biggest pig out of the entire box turtle colony.

I don't know much about her, but looking at her body gives a few hints. The first mystery is her species. She is much larger than the other box turtles in the colony, which suggests that she could be a Gulf Cost box turtle, but other markers don't match up, so we think she's an integrade between a Gulf Coast and some other box turtle species.

Her shell has a very natural shape, suggesting that she was wild caught as an adult. But she also has a lot  of shell damage, some of which is clearly shell rot, and some of which is harder to pinpoint. She was probably kept incorrectly for a long time.


That's all I can really say about her, but she's definitely a nice, friendly turtle.