North American Painted Turtle Habitats Are Calm, Muddy, Shallow, Sunny

Summary: North American painted turtle habitats are calm, muddy, shallow, sunny bogs, estuaries, lakesides, ponds, pools, rivers, streams and wet meadows.

western painted turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii); J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge, Souris River, north central North Dakota; Saturday, June 4, 2005, photo by Gary Eslinger/USFWS: USFWS Mountain-Prairie (USFWS Mountain Prairie), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American painted turtle habitats are calm, muddy, shallow, sunny bogs, estuaries, lakesides, ponds, pools, rivers, streams and wet meadows from southern Canada to eastern, northwesternmost, and albeit disjunctly southwestern United States.

Painted turtles bear the names eastern, midland and western painted turtles commonly and the respective names Chrysemys picta picta, Chrysemys picta marginata and Chrysemys bellii scientifically. Johann Schneider (Jan. 18, 1750-Jan. 12, 1822) in 1783 categorized painted turtle species and eastern, first-named subspecies, presently respectively called Chrysemys picta and Chrysemys picta picta. John Gray (Feb. 12, 1800-March 7, 1875) in 1831 Louis Agassiz (May 28, 1807-Dec. 14, 1873) in 1857 respectively described second-named, western and third-named, midland subspecies.

Chrysemys picta bellii (from Greek χρυσός [“gold”] and ἐμύς [“freshwater tortoise”] and from Latin picta [“painted”] and bellii) evokes Thomas Bell (Oct. 11, 1792-March 13, 1880).

Chrysemys picta marginata (from Latin margō, “edge, margin”) figures dark-centered, unlike eastern yellow and western red-edged, plastrons (lower-shells, from Greek ἐν-, “on” and πλασσειν, “to plaster”).

Eastern, midland and western painted turtles go on clawed forefeet, elongated, flattened hind feet and red-yellow-striped legs after invertebrate prey as juveniles and vegetation as adults. The Emydidae (from Greek ἐμύς, “freshwater tortoise” and -ειδής [“-like”] via Latin emys and -idæ) family member harvests pesticide-harmed, pollutant-hurt grassy, herbaceous, weedy plants and invertebrates. Testudines (from Latin testūdō, "turtle" and Greek -ηνός via Latin –īnus, “of”) order members incline atop semi-submerged logs and stumps and itinerate despite webbed hind feet.

Collectors, developers, polluters and predatory badgers, coyotes, fishers, foxes, herons, large fish, mink, opossums, otters, raccoons, skunks, snake and weasels jeopardize North American painted turtle habitats.

March through May, May through July and July through October kindle the marsh-turtle, pond-turtle and terrapin family member breeding, incubating eggs and parenting hatchlings and nestlings.

Females lay 2 to 25 elliptical, 1.25-inch- (3.175-centimeter-) long eggs in 4-inch- (10.16-centimeter-) deep nests once or twice northward and twice to four times southward. Hatchlings move out of their shells within 10 to 11 weeks and mature physically and sexually as two- to five-year-old males and four to eight-year-old females. Algae, aquatic insects, carrion, crustaceans and leaves nourish painted turtles, whose eastern, midland and western subspecies additionally respectively, need dead, injured fish; land plants; and seeds.

North American painted turtle habitats offer season-coldest temperature ranges, north to southward, from minus 45 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to minus 6.66 degrees Celsius).

The true turtle order’s western painted turtle subspecies promotes seed dispersal of white water lily (Nymphaea odorata) of southern Canada and eastern, northwesternmost, southwesternmost United States.

Five- to 9.875-inch (12.7- to 25.08-centimeter) total lengths queue up for flattened, oval, smooth black-olive upper-shells (carapaces) with 23 red-barred, red-crescented marginal scutes on each side. Upper-shell costal scutes remain aligned on eastern subspecies with plain southern-like 12-scuted yellow plastrons and aligned on midlanders with dark-blotched yellow lower-shells unlike branch-patterned western plastrons. The light-lined western carapaces (from Spanish carapacho, “shell” via French carapace) shelter, like all subspecies, green-olive heads, notched upper jaws and red-yellow-striped legs, necks and tails.

North American painted turtle habitats teem with black-olive upper-shells with red-marked marginal scutes, olive-green heads, red-yellow-striped legs, necks and tails, 12-scuted yellow lower-shells and upper-notched jaws.

map of "The native ranges of the Painted Turtle ("Chrysemys picta"), separated into its four sub-species": Fallschirmjäger (Liandrei), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

western painted turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii); J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge, Souris River, north central North Dakota; Saturday, June 4, 2005, photo by Gary Eslinger/USFWS: USFWS Mountain-Prairie (USFWS Mountain Prairie), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/14541060047/

map of "The native ranges of the Painted Turtle ("Chrysemys picta"), separated into its four sub-species": Fallschirmjäger (Liandrei), CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Painted_Turtle_Distribution_alternate.svg

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