Female diamondback terrapins that are spotted during road patrols are processed on the spot.

She will be checked for a microchip, and if she has one, we will try to remove it. Used microchips will not be re-used but they make very good educational materials. We keep them in small vials and pass them around during talks so that the audience have an idea how big the microchips are (the size of a grain of rice).

Whenever possible, we will also measure her carapace length (shell), carapace width, plastron length (underside) and height, but usually the carapace is very badly smashed that the only measurement we could take is the plastron length.

We then check for the presence of eggs in her oviduct. Some female terrapins are run over by cars after they have laid their eggs, but there are also many that are killed before they could lay their eggs. In cases where the eggs are not crushed (and strewn all over the road), we will put her in a box and bring her back to the lab at the Wetlands Institute.

Back in the lab, we perform a little surgery to remove the eggs in her oviduct, and the procedure is called oophorectomy, or simply known as “eggectomy” at the Wetlands Institute :D

The flap of skin right above the leg is cut open to expose the oviduct. In some severe cases, the carapace/plastron would be so badly damaged that the oviduct is visible without having to cut it open.

The terrapin carcass is then tilted to one side so that the oviduct and the eggs would slide down. It is always easier to let gravity assist in the removal of the eggs because we do not want to squash them by inserting our fingers into the cavity and grabbing the eggs. The eggs can be easily dented if we weren’t careful with them.

On average, a female terrapin lays between 8 and 12 eggs in a clutch, and we normally salvage that amount of eggs from the roadkills, but of course, there were instances where only 1 egg was found.

And sometimes, only undeveloped eggs are found in the oviduct!

Salvaged eggs are cleaned with distilled water and wiped dry before they are placed into containers containing 3 L of vermiculite and 300 mL of distilled water. The containers are then placed into incubators set at high temperatures so that more female terrapins are produced to replace the ones run over by cars.

More pictures taken during eggectomies (Warning: DO NOT click if you are not comfortable seeing VERY GORY pictures.).