Mid-Atlantic Turtle and Tortoise Society, Inc.

06/20/2026

06/20/2026

Clover, it's what's for breakfast if you're a baby pancake tortoise. Baby Champagne has calcium powder on her shell, too, from her dinner the night before.

Champagne is a baby pancake tortoise (Malacochersus tornieri) hatched by one of our members. Pancakes are native to east Africa and have a very unique physiology for a tortoise. Their shell is about 6" long when full grown, but only about 2" tall! The plastron (bottom shell) is a bit pliable compared to other tortoises, so it really feels weird to hold one. They live in rocky outcrops, wedging themselves into crevices for protection. They are also extremely fast, since getting into their craggy home is their only real defense. They're vegetarians, eating grass, succulents, and forbes ("weedy" plants and flowers) in the wild, and grass, hay, edible weeds, flowers, spinelesa Opuntia cactus, and greens in captivity. Poachers often destroy the rocky outcrops to get to the tortoises, so habitat loss as well as poaching is contributing to their rapid decline. They also only lay one to three eggs a year in the wild, and it takes 6-8 months to hatch a pancake egg! Little "Champagne" is growing like the weeds he or she loves to eat, and we'll provide updates as we get them. It will be at least two or three years before Champagne has grown enough to tell the s*x, since all turtles and tortoises hatch looking like girls.

06/20/2026

It's another shellebration! This week Eileen the eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) and her new friend went to their new home, a pond in a fenced backyard pond in Maryland. Eileen had been a pet for 20 years before her people needed to find her a new home. When Eileen was younger she'd been kept with a male painted, and as male painteds are jerks, he nipped her feet so much that she's missing several toes.
Her new friend was a pet for 9-11 years. She'd been taken from the wild by a fisherman and then given to a neighbor. We don't know how large she was when she was caught, but based on the condition of her shell, she might be on the older side, much older than 9 years.
Even though they've lived indoors for years or decades, even if Eileen lived indoors since she was a baby, they should brumate (hibernate) this winter just fine, since they have all summer to acclimate to their new home and eastern painteds are native to Maryland. Turtles are not domesticated, so most of them retain their native instincts. Eileen and her friend could not be released to the wild due to state wildlife regulations, especially since we don't know where they came from originally. Thanks to a caring family, they'll be able to live safely like wild turtles again in a backyard habitat without risking native wild turtle populations.

MATTS still has painted turtles for adoption, and they can be adopted for an indoor tank of at least 40 gallons or an escape-proof backyard pond or pond in an escape-proof yard. They CANNOT be adopted to VA or WV and most cannot be adopted to PA. Visit https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/md/baltimore/mid-atlantic-turtle-and-tortoise-society-md148/ to learn more.

Did you notice how the sections of Eileen's shell line up to form three horizontal lines across the top shell? Eastern painteds are the only turtle in the world that have that pattern on the shell.

06/18/2026

Fishing tackle and turtles. Great information for this time of year.

https://wildlifecenter.org/help-advice/wildlife-issues/fishing-tackle-threats-wildlife?fbclid=Iwb21leAShPfVjbGNrBKE942V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHk31oamc4U9YFk7y5IPyd1nVZ-DyGTRJxfaWZaMMCCb5h5jBcsJYCo695leF_aem_fj4O173Be-j4ei1Yt1VHbA

The Wildlife Center of Virginia has admitted dozens of wildlife patients who have sustained injuries due to entrapment in, or ingestion of, fishing tackle. The most frequently admitted species in these cases are waterfowl, turtles, and raptors who hunt near water. These wild animals come into conta...

06/18/2026

Our snapper patient Urdhe got quite a makeover during the recent pollen deluge! Isn't she pretty? 🥰

06/18/2026

Are you missing a tortoise in the Landover Hills, Maryland, area? One was found there on June 16th. If you think this might be your pet, please email pictures of your tortoise to [email protected]. If it's your tortoise, we'll put you touch with the finder. It's in a good temporary home at the moment.

Note: We typically do not identify the species of the tortoise for several reasons, including trying to keep the scammers and flippers to a minimum. Thank you.

06/15/2026

Which one of these lovely ladies will be adopted on Tuesday? There is a home with a fenced backyard pond in someone's future. One is a red-eared slider, and the other two are intergrades of red-eared and Cumberland sliders. An intergrade is a cross between subspecies, while a hybrid is a cross between different species.

Two of them are owner surrenders and one is from a humane confiscation. Since they're not native to Maryland, it would be illegal to release them to the wild, which is why we need ponds in escape-proof yards for new homes. Sliders do very well outside in Maryland and brumate (a.k.a. hibernate) just fine here so long as they have the summer to acclimate to their new home.

https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/md/baltimore/mid-atlantic-turtle-and-tortoise-society-md148/

06/14/2026

These may look like strawberries, but they're actually mock strawberries (Potentilla indica or Duchesnea indica), a non-native, potentially invasive plant from eastern and southern Asia. The berries are edible and nutritious, but foragers often refer to them as "disappointment berries" because they taste like nothing.
Box turtles, wood and water turtles, tortoise species that can have fruit, bearded dragons, and some other reptiles that can eat fruit can be fed the berries, but the LEAVES SHOULD NOT be fed to the reptiles.
These can take over a yard in some situations, so it's best to contain or pull them when you see them coming up, if you use your yard/lawn to feed your tortoises. They are very difficult to remove from a lawn once they start to take over.
Mock strawberries have YELLOW flowers, while true strawberries have white or pink flowers, and the fruit of mock strawberry is much smaller than a true strawberry. Also, the mock strawberry fruit grows up from the stem, while true strawberry fruit grows down from the stem.