Painted Turtle vs. River Cooter

Both lack a patch behind the eye, so look at the shell. A Painted Turtle's is smooth, flat and dark, with red bars and crescents around the edge and plain plates on top. A River Cooter's is longer, with a network of pale lines and a C-shaped mark on the second plate along each side. The Cooter is also much larger — up to a foot or more — and in Indiana is known only from big rivers in the far southwest.

Photographs via iNaturalist under Creative Commons licences; the photographers are credited on the sheet.

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Wildsight identifies the reptiles and amphibians of the United States. Every comparison