31  Encounters with turtles and intestinal worms

In late spring 1969 I was finishing my second year as a MA student at the University of Texas, Austin. My main focus was writing a thesis on the ecology and competitive relationships among nocturnal geckos in a remote part of the Peruvian coastal desert. This was the first major writing/analysis project that I’d undertaken, and it was painful for me.

In the midst of my writing, Ross Kiester, then a grad student with Ernest Williams at Harvard, contacted me. Ross and I had been undergrads together at UC Berkeley from ’64 to ’66 – Ross was (and is) one of the smartest, most creative, and always inspiring thinkers I’ve ever met.

Ross was starting a PhD thesis on the chromosomes of turtles. His goal was to use variation in the number and shape of chromosomes of different species as traits that could be used to infer phylogenetic relationships (thus build a ‘family’ tree for turtles). Ross had been fascinated by turtles ever since childhood, but his choice of thesis topics was influenced by George Gorman, a prior Williams student who had brilliantly used chromosomes to infer the family tree of Anolis lizards.

Ross asked if I’d like an all-expenses-paid trip to Veracruz, México. I don’t recall my exact response, but I’m sure it was something like, “Yes! But can this wait until early June, after I hand in my thesis.” Ross was fine by that slight delay.

Here were the terms: I would fly to Veracruz, go to the huge public market there, buy live turtles of as many species as possible, fly them back with me to Austin, and finally ship them to Ross in Cambridge, where Ross would extract chromosomes for analysis. Ross’s small grant would cover all my travel and shipping expenses.

When I asked Ross why he didn’t make the trip himself, he said that he barely had enough funds to cover my plane ticket from Austin, but not enough for him to fly from Boston. I wasn’t about to complain – I’d never seen Veracruz!

The prospect of ‘hunting’ turtles in a central market in Veracruz all sounded like a good adventure, which I certainly needed and deserved after suffering through my thesis writing and final exams. And no field skills were needed – that was lucky, as my field (or library) experience with turtles was minimal. So as soon as finals were over, I grabbed several suitcases (empty on the flight down) and flew to Veracruz.

Th public market was impressive, even if one weren’t fascinated by turtle diversity. But if you were interested in turtles, it was amazing. Big water-filled concrete tanks teamed with little turtles, big turtles, even medium-sized turtles. They came in different colors and shapes. In one minute I saw more turtle species than I’d seen in my entire life. One turtle must have been nearly a meter in length. It was a monster, but not a biter.

I knew nothing about which turtles might be the most important phylogenetically, so I just picked ones that looked different and interesting to me and hoped for the best.

My time in Veracruz was largely – but not exclusively – spent on turtle business. I had a few cold beers in open-air cafes. Beers there come with a slice of lime, which seemed a perfect addition.

I smuggled the turtles into the hotel without the management noticing (or at least objecting), put them in suitcases, and flew back to the states. My plane landed first in Harlingen, Texas, where I had to clear customs.

I hadn’t been concerned about getting the turtles through customs. In those days, I don’t think that collecting permits were yet required. And I’d previously brought in Mexican lizards and snakes through two customs sites on the US border just a few years before.

But the Harlingen agents asked to see my Mexican collecting permits. Oops. The answer was no, but I initially kept my mouth shut. Think fast RBH – think very fast.

I was of course tempted to respond, “Permits? I ain’t got no permits. I don’t need no permits. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ permits.” I immediately suppressed that temptation.

Instead I tried to turn the argument around. I argued that collecting permits weren’t required because I didn’t collect the turtles and had merely bought them in the public market in Veracruz. These turtles for food, not for the pet trade nor for scientific research.

Great story, of course, several suitcases full of turtles must have seemed an obvious excess of food to the agents. So I told the agents that for the past two years, several friends and I celebrated the end of finals in June by flying to Veracruz and partying. On our last night, we’d barbecue turtles that purchased in the market. Our on-the-beach barbecue was always the high point of our annual vacation.

I explained that my friends had conflicts this year and couldn’t travel, so I was elected to fly south, buy the turtles, and fly them to Austin, where we’d hold our annual turtle barbecue.

Astonishingly, the agents bought my story. Or perhaps they saw through the ruse but enjoyed my creativity enough to let me off.

One flight later the turtles and I arrived in Austin. I transferred them to a partially filled bathtub in my apartment (these were aquatic turtles). The next day I packed them up and shipped them to Ross for karyotyping. The turtles and their chromosomes are now entombed in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.

The story doesn’t end there. While in my bathtub, the turtles deposited copious turds either protesting their fate or merely just being turtles.

I’d planned to drive to Bay Area immediately after returning from Veracruz. After shipping the turtles to Ross, I grabbed some paper towels, quickly wiped out the bathtub, tossed the soiled towels into the toilet, washed my hands, and started driving to California.

When I returned to Austin a few weeks later and looked into the toilet bowl, I was horrified. Floating in the bowl – along with decomposing turds and paper towels – were hundreds of large (very large, very black) wiggling worms. Trust me, this was not a pleasant vision. Back in 1966, I’d contracted amoebic dysentery while in Costa Rica, and so initially I assumed that I inadvertently picked up these worms while in Veracruz. They were really big worms, though fortunately far from being Ascaris sized. Still, I felt suddenly nauseous.

After a few seconds of disgust and terror, I realized that the turds and worms must have come from the turtles, not from me. In my haste to leave Austin for Berkeley, I failed to flush the toilet.

A few years later (mid-70s), I was back in Berkeley. California was experiencing a major drought. I spotted the following hand-written sign posted in a toilet stall in the Men’s Gym at UC Berkeley. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” The last phrase is well worth remembering and executing, especially if turtles are involved.