In our beaver pond/creek we have Painted Turtles or Midland Painted Turtles.
I am always taking pictures from these and the other turtles here. But are the yellow face stripes of the Painted Turtles on the head/neck unique? So is there maybe a possibility to identify specific turtles over the years? Does anybody have an answer, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
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I know there is variation in striping and the stripe/spot of the “ear” on slider turtles that can be distinctive and might allow one to ID individuals, up to a point, assuming you have good images of both sides of the head. I’ve used that in the past when I had notch-marked turtles but where the notches were ambiguous and I used secondary features I’d recorded to confirm the individual ID (e.g., an unusual ear stripe on one side of head). But it’s not something I relied on. I’m not sure about painted turtles which might not show enough variability in head and neck stripes to allow ID of individuals.
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