Three-Toed, Gulf Coast, Florida, Eastern Box Turtles: Red or Yellow Eyes

Summary: Three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern North American box turtle habitats get brown-yellow-eyed females, red-eyed male brown-olive-orange-yellow shells.

A distinct pattern of bright yellow radiating stripes on the carapace distinguishes the Florida box turtle (Terrapene carolina bauri); Smyrna Dunes Park, New Smyrna Beach peninsula, Volusia County, east central Florida; Sept. 18, 2011: Andrea Westmoreland from DeLand, United States, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern North American turtle habitats assemble in vegetated wetland distribution ranges from Maine through Florida, Delmarva through Missouri, the Gulf Coast through eastern Texas and everywhere in-between.

The three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtle subspecies bear their common names because of biogeographical and physical configurations and the scientific name Terrapene carolina. They correlate taxonomically with Terrapene carolina triunguis (three-toed [hindfeet]), Terrapene carolina major, Terrapene carolina bauri ([Georg] Baur's, Jan. 4, 1859-June 25, 1898) and Terrapene carolina carolina. Carl Linnaeus's (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), Jean Louis Agassiz's (May 28, 1807-Dec. 14, 1873) and W.E. Taylor's descriptions in 1758, 1857 and 1895 drive taxonomies.

Three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtle life cycles expect flooded pastures, floodplains, marshy and swampy edges, moist forests, grasslands and woodlands and wet meadows.

March through May, May through July and August through October favor three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtle breeding, egg incubation and hatchling emergence stages.

Three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtles get about after rains and early in the day as Emydidae box, marsh and pond turtle family members. They have emydid habits of basking atop grasses, logs, rocks and stumps and consuming wild berries and wild mushrooms whose toxins they harbor in their flesh. Each elongated, flattened hindfoot is untortoise-like in webbing even though transverse hinges impelling forward and rearward lower-shell (plastron) lobes and upper-shell (carapace) margins together indicate terrestrialism.

Predatory crows, fire ants, foxes, leeches, millipedes, minks, muskrats, opossums, raccoons, skunks and snakes jeopardize three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern North American box turtle habitats.

Three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtle males keep elongated foreclaws keen on elaborate courtships that Emydidae bog, musk and pond turtle family members know.

Females lay 3 to 8 elliptical, thin-shelled, 1.375-inch (3.49-centimeter) eggs in flask-shaped, 3- to 4-inch- (7.62- to 10.16-centimeter-) deep cavities where hatchlings sometimes linger until spring. Females maintain 2 to 3 years of annual clutches of fertilized eggs, whose hatchlings mature physically and sexually within 3 to 5 years, from one mating. Beetles, berries, carrion, crickets, grasshoppers, grasses, mosses, mushrooms, slugs, snails, vegetables and worms nourish omnivorous ("everything-eating") three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern North American box turtles.

North American box turtle habitats offer sub-1,000-foot (sub-304.8-meter) altitude, season-coldest temperatures, from northerly minus 45 to southerly 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42.11 to 1.66 degrees Celsius).

Broadleaf, mixed, open bottomland forests, field-forest edges, marshy meadows, palmetto thickets, pastures, shrubby grasslands and stream valleys promote three-toed, Gulf coast, Florida and eastern box turtles.

Four to 8.5 inches (10.16 to 21.59 centimeters) queue up as total lengths for high-domed, rough-scuted, well-keeled (ridged) upper-shells on red-eyed males and on brown-yellow-eyed females. Florida versus eastern box turtles respectively reveal orange-yellow-marked, ray-patterned upper-shells, the sides of the heads double light-striped and three-toed hindfeet versus orange-yellow shells and four-toed hindfeet. Gulf coast versus three-toed box turtles respectively show big, brown-olive-tan, sparse-marked upper-shells flared rearward and four-toed hindlegs versus brown-olive-tan, dark-patterned upper-shells and spotted forelimbs and heads.

Day-active, high-domed, land-loving, rough-scuted, well-keeled brown-olive-orange-tan-yellow shells with red or yellow-brown eyes and three- or four-toed hindfeet turn up in North American eastern box turtle habitats.

Eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), also known as woodland box turtle, displays a highly variable pattern of orange to yellow lines and splotches on the carapace (upper shell); Woodbridge, southeastern Prince William County, Northern Virginia; May 22, 2010: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

A distinct pattern of bright yellow radiating stripes on the carapace distinguishes the Florida box turtle (Terrapene carolina bauri); Smyrna Dunes Park, New Smyrna Beach peninsula, Volusia County, east central Florida; Sept. 18, 2011: Andrea Westmoreland from DeLand, United States, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_box_turtle_(Terrapene_carolina_bauri)_-_Flickr_-_Andrea_Westmoreland.jpg

Eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina), also known as woodland box turtle, displays a highly variable pattern of orange to yellow lines and splotches on the carapace (upper shell); Woodbridge, southeastern Prince William County, Northern Virginia; May 22, 2010: Judy Gallagher (judygva), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/52450054@N04/32501498043/

For further information:

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Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12636637
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