Eastern Box Turtle

I've been putting some food out beyond the fence for the raccoons and to my surprise found they aren't the only ones that appreciate a good meal.


This message was edited Oct 9, 2007 10:01 PM

Did that all wrong,I'm missing the photo,sorry

Here is another picture of him enjoying the watermelon. When I first saw him he was trying to get to some broccoli in a plate. By the time I got back with the camera this is where I found him.

He's beautiful! And you are right, it's a he. We had a pair of them for years as pets. The female would run to the door (well, as fast as turtles can run) when ever someone came over. The male wasn't as bright. He used to hump rocks.

How can you tell? Besides the humping I mean.........LOL. I read they were close to being put on the endangered list.....urban sprawl.

bright orange or red eyes=male (Plus being dumb enough to hump rocks) You should see their little faces during sex, the sound is histerical too. They are like little old men only with more stamina.

LOL, you never fail to amuse me jylgaskin.
Saw one of these, a male for the first time a couple years ago. It was brighter, but had those orange eyes. Stepped into the house for a moment and came back out and he was gone. They CAN move pretty fast.

We had a Box turtle for a pet for years... last fall about this time, someone took him....that was Prince, we had him for more than 20 years..I miss him terribly!

melvatoo..He is a beautiful fella. How horrible someone took him. He was a part of your family and I can imagine how much you miss him. Thanks for sharing his picture with us.


This message was edited Oct 11, 2007 12:10 AM

jylgaskin...I did see another one there the day before but it was duller looking and I don't think its eyes were as bright. A female perhaps? And like yours cpartschick it was gone when I returned with the camera. They do move fast.

I have a million pictures of Prince...and his story, is on:
philmc.com

Along with the bright orange and red eyes, the male carapace (undershell) will be slightly concave. (it helps to keep them from sliding off the rocks) and usually their tail is a bit longer. In water turtles, the front claws are much longer on a male as well as the longer tail and concave belly. It looks like Prince might have actually been Princess. Our very first turtle was named myrtle (of course) and we called it that for two years before she started the rock humping thing and we did some research. It vastly improved his self image when we renamed him Maynard.
In Michigan we have more wood turtles than actual box turtles. The wood turtle has a bumpier shell and is really fast. They also have a rather nasty disposition and will sneek out from under the couch and bite your foot. (I know this from experience.)

We have turtle porn pictures of Prince..and I have seen 'his appartus' he is all male.

This message was edited Oct 11, 2007 1:08 PM

http://philmc.com/mlw/prince.htm

Now see, ya learn something new everyday here!!! lol

Cool story. It seems like thee is always a male out there to prove a theory wrong.

Why did you think he might have been a female?

It didn't look like he had the bright orange or red eyes of a male Eastern in the photos. He also has diffrent coloration than any eastern Box I have ever seen. Do they all look like that in Texas? I'm used to the paterning on the shell and skin. First I thought he might be a gopher or Three toed. But his shell is smooth and he has too many toes.

My son and I used to buy box turtles and return them to their natural habitats before they got so expensive. Last year I got a call from the state police to come and pick up a whole box of turtles that someone they arrested had in his trunk. They were in bad shape and I rehabbed the ones I could and ended up shipping them to three diffrent states to return them to the wild. I have patched up several hit by cars too. I think I'm the only rehabber on this side of the state who does turtles, but I have always loved them.

He is a three toed...and we thought he was probably a mix..the western boxies have the patherned shells, our turtle porn is him, with a female western, she produced one egg, but it never hatched

Now it makes sense. When I clicked on the one link, they called him an Eastern. and I really couldn't get a good look at the toes. Aren't they funny when they breed? It's their little faces. And the females just look bored. The rocks didn't care. I also had a pair od clogs that Maynard was rather fond of.

Too funny.
I have seen the big snappers during mating season. Sometimes they come together head to head and lift up on their hind legs to fight over a female. It is really something to see.
Mostly though they are under water just splashing and biting alot. They look just mean.

DH was raking the leaves yesterday and found a newly hatched snapper that was under the leaves. It didn't get hurt and he put it by the water, but he stopped raking in case there were more that hatched with our last warm spell.

I always feel so bad when I find a baby this late that I bring them in and winter them over in an aquairium. You hould see how fast they grow under ideal conditions! Of course they probably have a fit when I release them and they no longer get mealworms, steak and guppies.

I am such a sucker.

This little guy was quarter size, but not soft shelled, so he was a few days old. I hope he was able to burrow in the swamp water there and stay warm enough.
I felt bad for him because the topsy-turvey action he must have endured with the rake at the hands of my aggresive husband. Sheesh.

Better your husband than the crows and raccoons that usually find them. Once they get to the water, they have a good chance.

Why do turtles lay their eggs so far away from water? We found a couple babies this spring crossing the road , headed towards a pond.

I think part of the reason is that they want to be far enough away from the water if it floods as the eggs have to stay fairly dry and in the sun and the further from water, the less likely it is for a raccoon or skunk to find the nest. It does seem like they always want to nest on the other side of the road. I have found baby snappers in the yard and we are at least a block from the water. Maps and painteds seem to nest much closer to the pond.

After readign and enjoyign this thread, I wonderign if maybe I should put some veggies out in my yard to feed mine. I only se e the female when she comes from the back pond to lay her eggs and then she wanders on back, but her little ones stay here.

I never thought about bringing any little ones in. I been keepign a good supply of worms in the ground.

Aquatic turtles are carnivores. They don't really eat veggies. Box turtles and tortises eat fruit and veggies. Aquatic turtles rarely eat out of the water. I used to feed mine dried flies, owrms and meat, but only in the water. (maybe they don't have enought spit to eat dry.)

I love box turtles, we have a few living in our yard, every now and then one will come out into the open, but moslty I think they stay in the huge patches of old growth ivy. I have always heard that you should not move them out of their territory or they will die, though I never quite understood the reason behind it.

Never heard that one. It's probably like the one our mothers told us about NEVER touching a baby anything or it's mother won't come back. They do, it's just that our mothers didn't want us bringing homw every baby we found.

The article I read said they have a route to get where they need to go and by putting them somewhere else they will still try to get back to where they were going. Like when I stopped to get the box turtle out of the busy road he was crossing and put him back on the side he was coming from. He probably headed right back across after I left. If I had read that article before then I would have done it right!

If I move a turtle in the road I always put him on the side he was headed to and often wait a few moments to see if he keeps going or turns around. I always figgured they were trying to cross the road for a reason and who am I to argue?

I took a box turtle I found once to a wildlife center and they verified the "you shouldn't move them out of their territory" thing....and they were "supposed" experts. This particular turtle would have been a goner if I had left him, the patch of woods he came from was being bulldozed for a future storage facility.