Sighting of baby terrapin in London suggests first ever UK breeding

Month-old red-eared terrapin, usually native to US, found on Regent's canal after hot summerTerrapins, an invasive species and "voracious" devourer of British fish, newts, and even ducklings, may have bred in the UK for the first time due to the hot summer.Red-eared terrapin (Trachemys scripta elegans) have been a feature of UK waterways since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze in the late 1980s prompted a rush of people to buy them as pets, only to dump them in ponds and rivers when they grew too big for fish tanks.The turtles require high sustained temperatures to breed successfully, leading them to be classified as officially "not known to be reproducing in the wild" in the UK. But the discovery of one in London that is just a few weeks old has prompted ecologists to call for sightings of other juveniles to establish whether they have bred for the first time.Kevin Jarvis, a biology graduate, found the juvenile on the Regent's canal and has named it Ninja. Leela O'Dea, an ecologist at the Canal and Rivers Trust who examined it, said the terrapin was no more than a month old and that she had never heard of terrapins breeding in the UK before."They need sustained heat. For example, at 27C they would need 100 days [to breed successfully]. I don't think we were getting 100 days at 27C, but at 30C it would only need 60 days," she said. Looking at summer temperature records along the canal, she said "it was quite possible" it was born along the canal, given the number of micro...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: theguardian.com Biology News Animals UK news London Zoology Environment Science Wildlife Source Type: news