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Steve asked me an interesting question recently, how old Ralph was when he started to turn melanistic.
I've never really thought about it before. So I dug back in my digital pics, and found some good pics of his shell and skin changing colours. All the pics are with him under water, for comparison.

December 29, 2006. Lots of detail in the shell, bright red/orange stripes, clear lines on his head.


March 7, 2007. Still detailed shell, but lines on head starting to break into "spots". Notice the dark spots on his ear stripe too.


January 13, 2008, Shell darker, less detailed. Duller coloured ear stripes.


June 12, 2008. More dark than light spots on shell. Red stripe on top of head very pale.


July 4, 2008. Light spots on shell noticeably smaller. Pale ear stripes with dark spots.


October 21, 2008. Shell pretty much completely dark.


December 5, 2008. Light spots on shell much bigger. Wait, what???


August 5, 2009. Light spots have shrunk back down.


So it looks like in 2007 Ralph's shell and skin started to change. That would make him 12/13 years old when he started to darken up. Interestingly, it seems he also perhaps goes through seasonal changes too. His shell definitely had a lighter colour last winter. It could also possibly be that he was going through a shed at the time of the 5.12.08 pic. I guess we'll see if it lightens up again this winter!

same thing happened to mine. my 2 inch before was a dark ish green and i like that dark-ish green. now its turning brown and black spots. and the ears are having black spots too

I think what you're referring to is different Blackforces. Bulldog's turtle's shell is going melanistic (black) whereas your turtle is naturally changing colors from green (hatchling) to brown (adult).

I wonder though if the blackening of the shell is a normal change as well... Are there any other turtles around Ralph's age on this forum? It would be interesting to compare shells.

untsmurf-ooooo my little lady is becoming a woman. lol thanks for the help on that.

and there was this post with a big female RES and its shell was black. and it was a res. i don't know where the post is though. i don't remember who posted it either. but that turtle was big and it was female

That might have been Sheba. She's a large turtle and had a lot of black on her. Industrial_girl_2000 is her owner, btw.

A woman I know locally has a couple turtles over 20 and they definitely go very dark/black when they're that old, so I'd say it's normal. One of them, a male, you can't even see his red anymore, and their shells are black.

I really hope my male turns melanistic personally i think its neat.

Well my turtles around 8 years old so i got a couple years to go if im lucky.

I don't know why, but 75% of melanistic turtles are Male. Especially when male RES get older, it seems they always go melanistic. My female is about 9 so we'll see what happenes.

It's funny, because I see him every day, I never noticed any sort of drastic change, but looking at even the pics from a year ago, there's quite a difference, especially in his ear stripes.

I see in relection off the bottom of the tank hes got alot of black going down the middle of his plastron and each connecting scute. Very cool. Thats what i like the most. I like when i see them completely black. Love the phantom look.

My turtle was only about 5 years when he started to become melanastic. The change was so quick and dramatic, I thought there was a growth spurt going on (because the seams looked like they were expanding).

I'd love to see a pic Steve! How old are your turtles anyhow?

BullDog wrote:I'd love to see a pic Steve! How old are your turtles anyhow?

Yeah, Steve, I'd like to see pics too

Wow! It doesn't even look like the same turtle. They say male turtles are more melanistic and get darker over time, so this is a prime example!

Looking at the nails... Have ya'll ever noticed that, certain nails on a male's feet get to be a certain length? Pretending that turtle's have thumbs and pinky fingers like us... The third and four digit seem to get the longest, and stand out more... Whereas on a female, the difference in length between their nails is very gradual, the third digit being the longest.

Edit: After looking at some hatchling photos... Two of which were both 1.5 inches... I noticed something. Even on them, one hatchling had the third and four digit's nails being the longest, and the other had a more gradual length between the nails.

I'm going to go take a closer look at my turtles too...