Zoo New England Staff Use Morphometric Imagery to Determine Sex of Hicatee Turtles at BFREE

Bryan Windmiller and Emilie Wilder from Zoo New England join the BFREE Team to support the Bi-Annual Hicatee Health Assessment at the BFREE Biological Field Station in southern Belize. The March 2022 Health Assessments of the critically endangered Hicatee Turtle, Dermatemys mawii, focused on determining the sax ratios of the captive-bred Hicatee.

In this video, Emilie Wilder and Bryan Windmiller share how they are taking morphometric photos of each turtle to see if it is possible to use image analysis to determine if the turtle is male or female by the shape of its plastron.

A special thanks to both Emilie and Bryan for their invaluable help this week and to Zoo New England for their continued support of our Hicatee conservation program.