Western Pond Turtle

Question
How do you tell the age of a Western Pond Turtle?

Answer
The only really accurate method of aging ANY turtles or tortoises is to watch it hatch and start counting!

Failing that, you can arrive at a good estimate by counting the rings on several different belly plates. The age will generally be an average of the highest numbers you count. A young turtle may not show distinctive rings, and an older turtle may well have either worn the rings off or be so old that the rings are too crowded to count easily.

A lot of things effect the ring count- nutrition, envirnment, etc., so it is rarely perfectly accurate but it is usually good enough for our needs.