It’s Photo Hunt time, and this week, we are flexible to talk about anything we want to, as long as it is something we :heart: love :heart:

And well, if that’s the case, you know what I’m going to talk about, right?

This river terrapin looks sleepy because it has just been anesthetized for a non-invasive non-sacrificial surgical procedure to determine its sex. The procedure is called laparascopy. We administered some Ketamil according to its body weight and then allowed it 5 to 10 minutes to fall asleep.

After it has completely knocked out, we make a small incision (about 2cm) near its leg, and insert a laparascope (an inverted telescope) into its body cavity to look for its reproductive organ (either a testis or an ovary). I blogged about the entire sexing procedure on my previous blog.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, the sex of a river terrapin, as with any other reptiles, is determined by the temperature in which the eggs were incubated. Cooler temperatures produce males, and warmer temperatures produce females.

Updated: This particular terrapin hatchling was a male, as with many of the others that we sexed, due to the low temperatures at the hatchery on campus :)