Bog Turtles: Orange-Red-Yellow-Sided Heads, Unhinged Lower-Shell, Webfeet

Summary: North American bog turtle habitats get brown-tan upper- and dark unhinged lower-shells, orange-red-yellow-sided heads, webbed hindfeet and yellow midlines.

newly hatched bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), with yolk sac still attached to underside, in northern New Jersey; Aug. 23, 2010; photo by Rosie Walunas/USFWS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), Public Domain, via Flickr

North American bog habitats acclaim boggy, sunny, woody distribution ranges from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York southward through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Bog turtles bear their species common name because of boggy habitat niches and the species scientific name Glyptemys muhlenbergii as the "carved turtle (of Reverend) Muhlenberg." The scientific name commemorates Rev. Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (Nov. 17, 1753-May 23, 1815), Lutheran minister from Trappe, Pennsylvania, and specimen collector in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Scientific descriptions in Historia testudinum iconibus illustrata ("A Natural History of the Turtles") by Johann David Schoepff (March 8, 1752-Sep. 10, 1800) in 1801 drive taxonomies.

Bog turtle life cycles expect muddy niches flooded by subterranean waters and sunlit bogs, marshy meadows, narrow, shallow, slow-moving rivulets, spring seepages and wet cow pastures.

March through May, May through July and August through September fit into Muhlenberg's bog turtle life cycles as respective breeding, egg incubation and hatchling emergence months.

Muhlenberg's bog turtles generally go undetected because they give only glimpses of their shells while getting the sun's rays from basking grounds within mud and vegetation. They have critically endangered status with the International Union for Conservation of Nature partly because they head toward logs and stumps to bask in the dozens. Basking upon grassy tussocks and other itineraries, such as incubating in flask-shaped nest cavities and investigating invertebrate prey as overwintering hatchlings include other visible, vulnerable intervals.

Agroindustrialists, bacteria, breeders, collectors, parasitic flies, predatory crows, foxes, leeches, millipedes, muskrats, opossums, raccoons, skunks and snakes and purple loosestrife jeopardize North American bog turtle habitats.

Muhlenberg's bog turtle males keep elongated foreclaws on female heads and necks during elaborate courtships that all Emydidae bog, musk and pond turtle family members know.

Females lay one clutch northward, and two to three clutches southward, of 1 to 6 elliptical, flexible-shelled, 1.125-inch- (2.86-millimeter-) long eggs in 2-inch- (5.08-centimeter-) deep nests. Hatchlings make their ways from their shells within 42 to 80 days, may overwinter in northerly birth nests and mature sexually within 5 to 7 years. Ants, beetles, blackberries, carrion, crayfish, duckweed, earthworms, pondweed seeds, salamander larvae, skunk cabbage, slugs, snails, spiders, strawberries, tadpoles, watercress and worms nourish omnivorous (everything-eating) bog turtles.

North American bog habitats offer season-coldest coastal temperature ranges, northward to southward, from minus 20 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 28.88 to minus 12.22 degrees Celsius).

Alders, bulrushes, cattails, duckweeds, grasses, jewelweeds, mole burrows, mosses, muskrat lodges, red maples, rushes, sphagnums, spruces, tamaracks, tussock sedges and willows promote and protect bog turtles.

Three- to 4.5-inch (7.6- to 11.4-centimeter) total lengths queue up for mahogany to tan upper-shells (carapaces) with 12 orange-tan sunburst-patterned marginal scutes (plates) on each side. Adults reveal orange, red or yellow blotching alongside their heads, untortoise-like elongated, flat, webbed hindfeet and weak-keeled (ridged) upper-shells with 12 rough scutes on each side. Black-brown, hingeless, lower-shells (plastrons) with 12 rough scutes and yellow-marked midlines seem concave-shaped on males whose thick tails and vents (excrementary openings) show beyond upper-shell margins.

North American bog turtle habitats tender day-active turtles with black-brown, hingeless, 12-scuted lower-shells, elongated, flat, webbed hindfeet, orange-red-yellow sides and 12 scutes on each upper-shell side.

Distinctively bright orange-red-yellow coloring adorns both sides of a bog turtle's head; Mountain Bogs National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), western North Carolina; June 4, 2015; photo by Gary Peeples/USFWS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region (USFWS/Southeast), 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:

newly hatched bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), with yolk sac still attached to underside, in northern New Jersey; Aug. 23, 2010; photo by Rosie Walunas/USFWS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsnortheast/4924259588

Distinctively bright orange-red-yellow coloring adorns both sides of a bog turtle's head; Mountain Bogs National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), western North Carolina; June 4, 2015; photo by Gary Peeples/USFWS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region (USFWS/Southeast), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/18120958593/

For further information:

Aardema, J.; S. Beam; J. Boner; J. Bussone; C. Ewart; I. Kaplan; K. Kiefer; S. Lindsay; E. Merrill; W. Moretz; J. Roberts; E. Rockwell; M. Reott; J. Willson; A. Pickens; W. Guthrie; A. Young; Y. Kornilev; W. Anderson; G. Connette; E. Eskew; E. Teague; M. Thomas; and A. Tutterow. "Bog Turtle Glyptemys muhlenbergii." Herps of NC > Amphibians and Reptiles of North Carolina > Turtles.
Available @ https://herpsofnc.org/bog-turtle/

Holbrook, John Edwards. 1836. "Emys Muhlenbergii -- Schweigger." North American Herpetology; Or, A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Vol. I: 59-61. Philadelphia PA: J. Dobson.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4075469

"New World pond turtles (Emydidae)." Pages 105-107. In: Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd edition. Volume 7, Reptiles, edited by Michael Hutchins, James B. Murphy, and Neil Schlager. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2003.

Schoepff, Ioannis Davidis (Johan David). 1801. "Tab. XXXI. Testudo Muhlenbergii." Historia Testudinum Iconibus Illustrata: 132-133. (Issued in four parts: pages 1-32 in 1792 ; pages 33-80 in 1793 ; pages 81-112 in 1795 ; and pages 113-136 in 1801.) Erlangae [Erlangen, Germany]: Ioannis Iacobi [Johann Jacob] Palm, clɔ Iɔ cclxxxxii-clɔ Iɔ ccci.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4214714
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/joannisdavidissc00sch#page/132/mode/1up

Uetz, Peter. "Glyptemys muhlenbergii (Schoepff, 1801)." Reptile Database.
Available @ http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Glyptemys&species=muhlenbergii&search_param=%28%28search%3D%27Glyptemys+muhlenbergii%27%29%29