Abstract
I studied diet and life-history attributes of a population of the Texas river cooter (Pseudemys texana) in the South Llano River, a southern tributary of the Colorado drainage in southcentral Texas. Turtles were primarily herbivorous, consistent with other reports of diets of Pseudemys spp. Volumes of samples from flushing stomachs did not show the expected 3∶1 log-log correlation with length of plastron, suggesting that the technique may vary in reliability as a function of body size. Length of plastron ranged from 78 to 161 mm in adult males and from 213 to 241 mm in adult females. Four clutches averaged 8.4 eggs, which averaged 41.9 mm in length and 26.9 mm in width. Compared to congeners, P. texana is small-bodied with large eggs and a high degree of sexual dimorphism in size. Data from other populations of P. texana suggest that the turtles in the South Llano are exceptionally small-bodied.
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