wild thing
Autumn Is the Time for Turtles
By Rick Borchelt
Sometimes you learn the hard skunks, and errant dogs, let alone way how animals get their curious third-graders. And there common names. Take box was no way to pry her loose without damaging her shell. turtles. These iconic land turtles— not tortoises— were My grandfather was no help. common where I grew up in He told me that, once closed, a box the Ozarks, and as kids we turtle won’ t open again until it hears were forever bringing them home thunder( it was a perfectly sunny( where they invariably escaped by day in a perfectly sunny week). My digging out of whatever contraption we kept them in). was more sympathetic. She dunked
grandmother, on the other hand,
One day, I was showing my my hand, turtle and all, into the grade-school friends how to tell a rain barrel at the side of the porch, boy turtle from a girl turtle and I whereupon the turtle quickly released its boxy grip. inadvertently— that’ s my story and I’ m sticking to it— poked my finger into the shell space around the the Ozarks, the box turtle is in de-
Today, even in the woods of head and legs.
cline. In Maryland, the fate of the She promptly closed the hinge Eastern box turtle, Terrapene carolina carolina, is even more pre- that puts the“ box” in box turtle. It was crushingly painful. After all, carious. Mixed forest-field habitat with few roads like that of the the box is designed to deter foxes,
Male Eastern box turtle with bright red eyes.
PHOTO: JD Kleopfer
Agricultural Reserve is critical to the future of box turtles here.
While they look superficially like tortoises, box turtles are actually more closely related to pond turtles, even though they live on land. Out of seven box turtle species worldwide, box turtles in the U. S. roughly divide into Eastern( Terrapene carolina) and its four subspecies( one of which is extinct); Western( Terrapene ornata) and its two subspecies, and Threetoed( Terrapene triunguis), which some turtle authorities treat as yet another carolina subspecies.
Here in Maryland we have only the Eastern subspecies of box turtle in its originally described form, Terrapene carolina carolina. The genus name Terrapene was coined by German naturalist Blasius Merrem by Latinizing the Algonquian words for box turtle, torope or torup. Early colonial settlers called box turtles terrapins. The species name carolina of course references where the original specimens were collected.
Box turtles are distinguished from other turtles by their high, domed top shell( the carapace) and a hinged bottom shell( the plastron). The carapace is brightly patterned on a dark background to better blend in with the patterns of sunlight falling on a field or wooded glade.
In general, males are more brightly colored than females.
20 plenty I autumn harvest 2026