Reptiles page 5

Animal Stories: During my childhood, we often kept turtles for pets. There were the softshell, painted and musk turtles that we caught in local rivers and lakes, a diamondback terrapin from North Carolina, where they were sold for soup, the large snapping turtles that we would have for supper, and friendly box turtles that were constantly underfoot to eat the exposed worms when we worked in the gardens. One favorite pet was a large Blanding's turtle from Wisconsin. She was very tame and ate from our fingers and liked to have her neck scratched. During the winter she hibernated in the basement and in the summer she had a small pond outside. One summer, we came back from a 2 week vacation, expecting to find a very hungry turtle and instead, she refused to eat. When we cleaned out her murky pond, we discovered the reason: she had caught and eaten a bird in our absence. There were bones all over the bottom of the pond and our resourceful turtle was fat and well-fed.

Monitor (zoo) Monitor (zoo) Chameleon (zoo) Lizard (zoo) Basilisk (zoo) Gecko (zoo) Gecko (zoo) Mediterranean Gecko (Austin, Texas) Green Iguana (captive, Cypress Gardens, Florida) Fence Lizard (Silver River State Park, Florida) Cuban Brown Anole (Marie Selby Gardens, Sarasota, Florida) Cuban Brown Anole (Barnum & Bailey Circus Museum, Sarasota, Florida)