I’ve recently returned to South Dakota from my annual trip out to the Chihuahuan Desert of west Texas where I have been collaborating on multiple research projects involving the Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens). I have been marking and studying turtles in both ephemeral and permanent cattle ponds at this study site for 11 years. In addition to taking morphometric measurements of individuals, we have tracked movement, used iButtons to measure temperatures (as a proxy for when turtles are moving to and from these ponds), and monitored an undescribed shell disease. This trip (6 days of mark-recapture) resulted in over 200 unique turtles collected, with numerous young (1–2 year-old), unmarked individuals.