author(s)
Shem Unger, Javier Enrique Canahuati Escobar and Mark Rollins

abstract
Reptile hematology monitoring can provide important indicators of overall individual and ecosystem health of reptile populations. Freshwater turtles are commonly encountered in semi-urban systems across the southeastern United States, making them ideal to assess wetland health and study parasite ecology. We characterized internal and external parasites of four species of aquatic turtles, Painted turtles (Chrysemys picta), Yellow-bellied slider turtles (Trachemys scripta), Common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina), and musk turtles (Sternotherus odoratus) found in a semi-urban campus pond in Wingate, North Carolina. We found overall low prevalence of both external parasites (11.8%) in all turtles samples and internal parasites, or parasitemia in blood from a subset of turtles sampled (only in C. serpentina and S. odoratus), which varied across species with the most common intra-erythrocyte vacuoles morphologically consistent and similar to Chelonoplasma and Sauroplasma. Interestingly, we utilized a simple approach for identification of external leech parasites down to species using DNA barcoding and report on the diversity of leeches found on turtles, an often understudied area of turtle research. This data provides baseline estimates for both blood and parasite load of leeches belonging to Glossiphoniidae in wild piedmont freshwater turtles.