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Presence And Colonization Of Placobdella On Two Species Of Freshwater Turtles (Graptemys Geographica And Sternotherus Odoratus), Travis Ryan

Travis J. Ryan

It is generally accepted that bottom-dwelling turtles have a higher ectoparasite load than turtles that bask aerially because of effects of desiccation on ectoparasites, especially with regard to leeches. We compared number of leeches (primarily Placobdella parasitica) on field-caught Common Musk Turtles (Stemotherus odoratus) and Common Map Turtles (Graptemys geographica). The bottom-dwelling species S. odoratus had more than 20 times the number of leeches than the aerial-basking species G. geographica. We then exposed cleaned (leech-free) turtles to leeches in mesocosms (cattle tanks) to measure the rate of colonization. In this experiment, S. odoratus had more than four times the number …