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Big Bend Slider
Trachemys gaigeae
The Big Bend slider (Trachemys gaigeae), also called commonly the Mexican Plateau slider and la jicotea de la meseta mexicana in Mexican Spanish, is a species of aquatic turtle in the family Emydidae. The species is native to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
From the article Big Bend slider on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
Adults of T. gaigeae have a straight carapace length of 5 to 11 inches (13 to 28 cm).
Range & habitat
T. gaigeae is native to the United States in the states of New Mexico and Texas, and to northern Mexico in the state of Chihuahua. It is found primarily in the Rio Grande and Rio Concho.
Wikipedia: “Geographic range”
What it does
Primarily aquatic, the Big Bend slider is often seen basking on rocks or logs in the water, and when approached quickly dives to the bottom. The only time it spends a large amount of time on land is when females emerge to lay eggs. It is an omnivorous species, with younger animals being more carnivorous, and progressively becoming more herbivorous as they age, with older adults being nearly entirely herbivorous.
Wikipedia: “Behavior”
In human culture
The epithet, gaigeae, is in honor of American herpetologist Helen Beulah Thompson Gaige, who collected the first specimen in the Big Bend region of Texas in 1928.[1]
Wikipedia: “Etymology”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Trachemys gaigeae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 39794.