Red-eared Slider

Trachemys scripta elegans

Range: Native range is through Eastern United States
down to Mexico. Due to the pet trade they have been
introduced all over the world.

Habitat: Sliders will live in almost any permanent body

of water with enough aquatic vegetation and basking
areas. This includes ponds, swamps, lakes, reservoirs,
ditches, and slow sections of streams or rivers.

Diet: Omnivorous, snails, insects, crustaceans, aquatic plants, seeds, fish

Lifespan: Have been known to live over 40 years in captivity

Description: Red-eared sliders are a medium-sized aquatic turtle with a predominately olive
colored carapace with yellow stripes. The skin is also a dark olive or brown with a varying
degree of yellow striping, which is usually more visible on the head. Red-eared sliders their
name from the bright red stripe of color located behind the eyes. Males have very long front
claws that are used while courting females. The plastron of the slider is usually a yellowish
color with a dark spot in each scute. This species is sometimes confused with the painted turtle.

Breeding: Females produce a clutch of between 2 to 30 oval shaped eggs. Temperature during
incubation will determine the sex of the offspring. Mortality rates are high among turtle nests
and hatchlings, with 70-100% mortality occurring on an annual basis. Hatchlings that do
survive take 2-8 years to fully mature.

Behavior/Adaptations: These turtles are referred to as sliders because of the way they
quickly slide into the water from basking locations when disturbed. Like many aquatic turtles,
they spend most of their day basking in the sun. Red-eared sliders are most active around
dawn and dusk when they will forage for food underwater. Sliders have a lower tolerance for
cold than the painted turtle. When water temperatures dip below 50 degrees Fahrenheit,
sliders become inactive and will go dormant between October and April. They will usually
spend the winter buried in the mud or in abandoned tunnels.

Predators: Skunks, raccoons, and other predators will often eat eggs and hatchlings. Adult
sliders are most vulnerable to predation while traveling on land. Like other turtle species, red-
eared slider mortality has increased due to encounters with humans.

Conservation: Red-eared sliders are a common species of turtle. However, they have been
greatly damaged in their natural range due to encounters with humans. This species has been
extremely popular in the pet trade, and mature turtles are often taken from the wild to
supplement breeding stock at turtle farms. They are also shipped over seas for the pet and food
markets. In addition, turtles are killed because of the myth that they compete directly with
commercial fishermen. Many red-eared sliders are killed by cars annually. Because sliders have
been released in places outside of their natural range, there are established populations all over
the world. These populations could become competition with naturally occurring animals in
those areas.
The Zoo’s Red-eared Sliders: Three red-eared sliders live at the zoo with our painted
turtle. A male and female hatched in 1998 and our second female hatched in 2011.

Interesting Facts:
• Sliders can stay underwater for 2 to 3 hours before they become stressed.
• It is illegal to sell a turtle with a carapace less than 4 inches in length as a pet in the
United States. However, large numbers of hatchlings are shipped to other parts of the
world for sale.
• Sliders will sleep at night by laying on the bottom under water or by inflating their
throats to help stay afloat and rest at the surface.
• They are considered one of the 100 most invasive non-native species in the world.

Empathy Stories and Messages

• We think of turtles as being slow, but they can walk as fast as a person, about 4 mph,
and swim faster than the best Olympic swimmer! Their cousins the tortoises are the
slow ones! Turtles need to be fast because they will hunt fish, insects, and other animals.
Have you ever tried to catch a turtle in the water? Was it easy or hard?
• Turtles don’t have teeth like we do. Instead, they have a bumpy ridge on their jaw that
they can use to crush their food!
• Can you lay on your stomach and pretend to swim like a turtle? Oh a fish is swimming
by, grab it in your beak and crush it with your jaw! You are staring to feel cold, but
luckily you see a nice warm log sticking up out of the water. Climb up onto the log and
soak-up the warm sun! Oh no a boat full of people is coming. Quick, slide back in the
water. You will have to wait until it is quiet again to go back to your warm log!

Lake Superior Zoo Conservation Message

Story (ages 6 and up): Turtles live in a wetland habitat that can be easily polluted. When it
rains, the water can carry pollution from lawns, streets, and sidewalks to the lowest part of the
land. Often, the lowest part of the land is where the ponds, rivers, lakes, and streams are
located. This makes wetlands more easily polluted than other places.
What you can do: Make sure trash goes into the garbage and reuse and recycle what you can.
By keeping garbage off the street, we are keeping it from blowing into wetlands. We must also
be careful about fertilizers and other chemicals we put on our lawns. Any chemical that is put
on our lawns can wash into the sewer and end up in a nearby wetland.

Story (ages 9 and up): For many turtles, whether their young hatch as female or male
depends on their temperature while they’re in the egg. Eggs exposed to warmer temperatures
tend to produce females, while cooler temperatures tend to produce males. A warming climate
could mean more females hatch than males, (or the eggs get too warm to hatch at all) which
would make it harder for the turtles to reproduce each generation afterwards.
What you can do: Saving energy helps to reduce carbon, which reduces the effects of climate
change. We can help animals like turtles by asking our parents if we can walk/ride our bike to
our friends’ houses instead of driving. We can also conserve energy to reduce the amount of
greenhouse gasses by turning off lights when we leave a room, and unplugging electronics that
aren’t being used.
Information taken from the following sources:
Harding, James. Amphibians and Reptiles of the Great Lakes Region. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 1997
Walls, Jerry. Cooters, Sliders & Painted Turtles. New Jersey: T.H.F. Publications, 1996
https://www.beardsleyzoo.org/red-eared-slider.html