Literaturdatenbank
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Norton, T. M., Chaffin, K., Poppenga, R., Jensen, J. B., Moler, P. E., & Cray, C., et al. , Health assessment of the alligator snapping turtle (macrochelys temminckii) in georgia and florida. Paper presented at Turtle Survival Alliance 2006 Annual Meeting.
Added by: Admin (13 Dec 2008 22:23:49 UTC) |
| Resource type: Proceedings Article BibTeX citation key: Norton2006a View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Chelydridae, Habitat = habitat, Macrochelys, Macrochelys temminckii, Nordamerika = North America, Schildkröten = turtles + tortoises, Veterinärmedizin = veterinary medicine Creators: Chaffin, Chen, Cray, Denslow, Dierenfeld, Gibbs, Gross, Jensen, Johnson, Kroll, Moler, Norton, Oliva, Origgi, Poppenga, Sepulveda, Telford Collection: Turtle Survival Alliance 2006 Annual Meeting |
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| Abstract |
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The alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) is the largest fresh water turtle in North America. It is confined to river systems that drain into the Gulf of Mexico. Except for nesting females, they almost never leave the water and are nocturnal. M. temminckii is a top of the food chain predator and may be a good bio-indicator species for the freshwater stream ecosystem. Macrochelys temminckii is considered to be threatened by the state of Georgia and is a species of special concern in Florida. The major cause of this species decline is previous commercial harvest. There is minimal information on health issues pertaining to M. temminckii. The goal of this ongoing study is to establish base-line health, nutrition, and reproductive parameters and monitor the health of this species over time. In this study, the turtles are captured utilizing fish-baited single, opening funnel traps that are placed immediately upstream from favored microhabitats. The traps are left over night and checked the next morning. A complete physical examination, body weight, and morphometric measurements, complete blood count, chemistry panel, bile acid level, protein electrophoresis, vitamins D, A and E, heavy metal screen, cholinesterase levels, selected pesticides, vitellogenin, sex hormones, infectious disease serology, and blood and external parasite identification and quantification are performed on each turtle. Significant results include finding an undescribed hemogregarine species in the RBCs of most of the turtles, low circulating vitamin D levels, elevated blood mercury in turtles collected from certain river systems while not in others, and mild to heavy leech loads in most of the turtles evaluated.
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