A Pet Shop Animal With a Predator's Appetite
The red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, is native to the Mississippi River basin in the United States. It gets its name from the vivid red stripe behind each eye. In a tank, it is docile, long-lived, and cheap. In the wild, it is a generalist omnivore that eats aquatic plants, fish eggs, tadpoles, invertebrates, and the hatchlings of native waterfowl. A single adult can consume enough vegetation to alter the plant composition of a small pond within a season.
