Welcome to My Turtle Cam
This is a site about keeping turtles. It's intended for people who like aquatic turtles (turtles who live near and spend a lot of time in the water), and who want to learn how to keep them as pets or as a hobby.
I have tried to provide the most important information that someone new to the hobby needs to know, along with links to more advanced information about keeping turtles.
This site also features a live video feed of a turtle tank here in my office. It doesn't always work because sometimes the Internet connection goes down, and sometimes the computers that run the feed need maintenance. But most of the time, you should be able to watch the turtles just by clicking here or on the link on the left.
This site won't tell you everything you need to know about keeping aquatic turtles. Turtles are very complex animals, and learning to care for them can take a lifetime. Instead, this site provides the most important information that someone new to the turtle hobby needs to know, as well as links to sites where you can find more advanced information.
Who This Site was Written For
There are a lot of turtle sites on the Internet, so why do we need another one?
Well, most of the turtle sites I've looked at are either written for very little kids (using a lot of baby talk and cartoon pictures), and don't contain much useful information; or else they're written for people who are already experts and discuss very advanced aspects of keeping turtles. I couldn't find too many sites that provided basic information for beginners, and which were written in language that kids could understand, but that wasn't babyish. So I went ahead and built this one, and I wrote it with the following assumptions in mind:
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That the people who would visit were aged middle-school through adulthood.
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That they were new to the turtle hobby, and either were planning to get a turtle or just got one.
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That they wanted to learn good turtle husbandry (which is a word for raising and caring for animals, in this case, turtles).
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That they would be raising their turtle inside, in a tank. (Many people raise turtles in outdoor ponds, but I think using a tank is easier for beginners.)
About Our Turtles
The turtles on this site's video feed were purchased especially for this site. They're my turtles, but they're yours, too, if you visit this site. So feel free to watch them and keep track of their progress with me.
The turtles I selected for this site are Southern Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta dorsalis). They're my favorite painted turtles, and I think they're a very good choice for beginning turtle hobbyists. Here's why:
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Southern Painted Turtles are relatively easy to care for, as turtles go.
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They have very pleasant personalities and quickly learn to recognize their keepers.
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They're very animated (that is, they move around a lot). They love to swim and explore, so they're more interesting than turtles who just sit around all day.
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They're small by aquatic turtle standards, so they don't need quite so big a habitat when they grow up. Male (boy) Southern Painted Turtles grow to about five inches, and females (girls) grow to about seven inches. That makes them the smallest of the painted turtles, and one of the smallest of the aquatic turtles in North America.
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Southern Painted Turtles are very pretty. They're called "painted turtles" because of their coloration, which looks like someone painted them with an artist's brush.
I hope you enjoy this site and learn from it. Turtles are beautiful, fascinating creatures, and keeping turtles is a wonderful hobby that can provide a lifetime of enjoyment and education.
Have fun!
