Description: Usually grows 4 ½ - 6 inches. The Eastern Box Turtle is a “land turtle” with a high domed shell, and variable color variations. Both upper and lower shells may be yellow, orange, or olive on black or brown; either dark or light colors may predominate. There are four toes on each hind foot. Males: real lobe of plastron with central concave area; eyes normally red. Female: Plastron flat or slightly convex; eyes normally brown. Young shell much flatter; mostly plain grayish brown, but with spot of yellow on each large scute.

Behavior: Essentially terrestrial, they still sometimes soak themselves by the hour in mud or water. During hot, dry weather, they burrow beneath logs or rotting vegetation. Summer showers usually bring them out of hiding.

Range and Habitat: From southern Maine, south to Georgia, and west to Michigan, Illinois and Tennessee. Prefers open woodlands, pastures, and marshy meadows.

Diet: Omnivorous. Chiefly carnivorous when young, more herbivorous with age. Eats snails, worms, insects, spiders, frogs, snakes, lizards, small mammals, carrion and plants.

Reproduction: 3-8 elliptical white eggs are laid in flask-shaped nests in light soil. Several clutches are laid each year. Normally 75-90 days incubation are needed before hatching. Box turtles can live 20-30 years.

Fun Facts:

	May lay viable eggs for up to 4 years after mating; semen is stored in glands in the oviducts. In northern climes, they hibernate in October or November by burrowing into loose soil, mud, or mammal burrows. As soil temperature drops, they burrow deeper.
	Male box turtles have a concave plastron to facilitate mating. In both sexes the plastron has a hinge between the pectoral and abdominal scutes which divides it into two movable lobes. This allows them to withdraw their head, legs and tail within the shell and close completely to the outside world.

Status in the wild: North American box turtles are listed by CITES as a threatened species. Numbers are decreasing because of shrinking habitat, low clutch size and high hatchling mortality. Permits for export and import are required. Many states protect their native box turtles and do not allow collection.

Bibliography:
1. Ernst, Carl and Barbour, Roger. 1989. Turtles of the World, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 194-196.