File:Aquatic life (1918-1919) (19126382923).jpg

Title: Aquatic life
Identifier: aquaticlife419181919baus (find matches)
Year: 1918-1919 (1910s)
Authors: Bausman, Joseph E
Subjects: Aquariums; Fish culture
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. E. Bausman
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
116 Aquatic ILitt Illinois, where they are abundant, and he has favored me with both living and dead specimens of several sizes. Of the for- mer I have made a number of photo- graphs, a very good one of which is here reproduced in Figure i. It is natural size, and was a most difficult subject to photograph—that is, with its head, limbs and tail in full sight. This achievement cost me nearly six hours spent in con- secutive trials. The dorsal and ventral views (Figs. 2 and 3) are from a specimen that had been
Text Appearing After Image:
Superior and Ventral Views of Lesueur's Terrapin dead but a few hours previous to my pho- tographing it. These cuts present many of the specific, as well as generic char- acters of this form, and special attention is invited to the large feet and long tail, as well as the tuberculated ridge down the median line of the carapace seen on side view in Figure 1. In several specimens before me at this writing I find the color of the carapace to be of a deep olive brown, varying somewhat in different individuals. Blackish-brown splotches, one on each shield, are more or less distinctly seen. In some cases they are very well marked, but they unfortunately do not come out in these photographs. Below, the plas- tron is of a grayish yellow, and sometimes presents a deeper marbling near the mar- gins of the scutes (Fig. 3). The head, limbs and tail are of a deep brownish olive, figured in various ways by fine lines of yellow, with a sharply defined small area of the same color on either side of the head—back of and above either eye. A median stripe of yellow runs the length of the tail, one above and one below. The median length of the carapace in this species may sometimes be found to measure nearly ten inches and its width over seven. Lesueur's Terrapin is an abundant spe- cies throughout the valley of the Missis- sippi, and may be found as far to the east- ward as Ohio; it is sold in numbers in the Chicago markets. It is a delicate form by nature and does not bear cap- tivity well. Its habits are much the same as those of any of the ordinary fresh- water terrapins of its own size, and oc- curring in the same locality. As a rule, in the species of this genus the females are larger than the males—markedly so in some examples, while the long tails are very conspicuous, this latter character being particularly noticeable in the males. Lesueur's Terrapin feeds largely upon fresh-water snails and other small mol- lusca, and such food they can easily crush through the use of the broad, hard sur- face just within the margin of the man- dible on either side, as well as in similar localities, and opposite them, in the upper jaw. These gringing surfaces are accu- rately opposed to each other—that is, the pair above and the pair below; so that adult individuals of this terrapin are, through their use, quite capable of crush- ing the shells of ordinary snails and other small molluscs.

Note About Images