If opportunity present itself they will happily go after bigger prey as well, e.g. In the wild, they catch suitably sized animals such as snails, worms, slugs and beetles. They can catch prey but will happily eat carrion as well. They are known to eat a lot of different things, including fruits, berries, mushrooms, flowers, grasses, etc. What does an Eastern Box Turtle eat?Įastern box turtles are opportunistic omnivores that will eat both animal and plant matter. This way, the male can fit over the back end of the female’s carapace during mating. The female has a flat plastron, while the male has a concave plastron. Males normally have red irises, while females normally have brown irises. Each front foot have five toes, while each hind foot have four toes (or, more unusually, three toes).
The legs of an eastern box turtle are stout. In certain isolated populations, male turtles may sport blue patches on their cheeks, throat and front legs.
#Eastern box turtle skin#
The exact skin color varies from turtle to turtle, but the skin is usually brown or black and decorated with spots or streaks of yellow, orange, red and/or white. The coloration and pattern of the carapace (and the skin) makes it easy for the eastern box turtle to stay hidden among fallen leaves. The coloration varies, but the carapace of an eastern box turtle is usually brownish or black and adorned with a yellowish to orange radiating pattern of lines, blotches and dots. This ability to completely close the shell is found on all box turtles. The carapace is high and dome-shaped, with a hinged plastron that makes it possible for the turtle to completely close the carapace. BodyĮastern box turtles are normally around 4.5-6 inches long, but specimens over 7 inches do occur. They can also submerge themselves in mud, sometimes for days at a time, to avoid the heat. When the weather is warm, eastern box turtles cool off by bathing in puddles and shallow streams. Just as in the forests, the turtles want the floor to be moderately moist in these environments and seek out areas with wet leaves or wet dirt.
Sometimes eastern box turtles are encountered in non-forested areas, such as grasslands and pastures. Bottomland forest seems to be more popular than ridges and hillsides. The eastern box turtle is known to appreciate a moderately moist forest floor with good drainage. (A deciduous forest have trees and shrubs that shed their leaves seasonally, while a mixed forest have evergreen trees as well, such as evergreen firs and pine trees.) The suggestion made it through one house of the legislature, but failed to win a final naming in 2009.Įastern box turtles prefer deciduous forests and mixed forests. Pennsylvania almost made the eastern box turtle their official state reptile.“The turtle watches undisturbed as countless generations of faster ‘hares’ run by to quick oblivion, and is thus a model of patience for mankind, and a symbol of our State’s unrelenting pursuit of great and lofty goals.” The eastern box turtle is the official state reptile of both North Carolina and Tennessee.In the north where the climate is colder, this subspecies is normally limited to regions below 1,000 feet above sea level. In the southern parts of their range, eastern box turtles are found up to 6,000 feet in elevation. They are present in the Great Lakes region, but they are rare there and typically limited to areas far away from busy roads. They are found all the way from southern Florida in the south to southern Main and the southern and eastern parts of the Michigan Upper Peninsula in the north. The eastern box turtle lives in the eastern United States, from eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to the Atlantic Ocean.
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