Asked on the Turtle Forum by Dennim4 on 2/13/2006, 2:30 pm
Q: size
We aquired a red eared slider in April of '04. It turned out to be male. My son was netting bait at the pond for fishing and found another in his bucket. End of March-Beginning of April '05. It has turned out to be female. My query is; the male has only grown to about 4 and a half inches (carapace-head to tail). The female, who is a year younger, is about 6 inches already. They were both small as quarters when aquired. I know that females grow larger than males because of mating and survival. But is this kind of growth normal? Is it because she is wild where he was captive? Or just parental DNA? Or what?
