Investigate Box Turtles and Their HabitatA Box Turtle Habitat in your outdoor classroom provides provides the food, water, and shelter that box turtles need to survive including loose soil where they can burrow down underground as they brumate (hibernate) during the winter.
A Box Turtle Habitat in your outdoor classroom provides provides the food, water, and shelter that box turtles need to survive including loose soil where they can burrow down underground as they brumate (hibernate) during the winter.
Turtles are reptiles (cold-blooded animals that are covered in bony plates and scales).
Alabama is home to 31 species of turtles. This is more species than any other state in the country! This includes some that live mostly in water and some that live on land. Generally, this difference is what separates turtles (aquatic) and tortoises (terrestrial). However, the box turtle is unique in that it is a turtle that primarily lives on land.
Eastern box turtles can be found statewide in Alabama, but populations are much smaller in some areas than others. There are also other types of box turtles found in Alabama – the three-toed box turtle and the Gulf Coast box turtle.
In Alabama, Eastern box turtles are protected. This means that you cannot collect them from the wild and keep them as pets. If you have box turtles at your school, it’s only because you have been given special permission from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and you are limited to two, non-breeding turtles.
Eastern Box Turtle in Habitat
Tyler Burgener
Adaptations are those features that help an organism survive in a their habitat. Box turtles have a number of adaptations, including these listed below.
Box turtles have a hinged plastron (bottom of shell). Because of this, they have the unique ability when threatened to retract their limbs, tail, and head into their shell and close it tightly.
Many turtles have hinged shells, but box turtles are the only ones that can close theirs completely. As the shell closes, air is released, creating a hissing sound.
Box turtles have a tremendous homing instinct. A home range is the area in which an animal lives its life from birth to death. Box turtles feed, mate, and hibernate in their home range. It is typically about the size of a football field. Their homing instinct allows them to recognize important characteristics of their home range, like locations of food and water.
If they travel outside of their home range, they will try their hardest to find their way back home. This is why it is important to help a turtle cross the road if necessary, and not to bring it home and release it where it is far from its home range.
Box Turtle with Shell Closed
Project Noah – Neil Dazet
Your box turtle habitat includes food, water, and shelter for box turtles.
Box turtles are omnivores. This means they eat both meat and vegetables. In the wild, they eat mushrooms, worms, snails, bugs, berries, and plants like dandelions. Some of the plants in your box turtle habitat provide a food source for the turtles, like strawberries, clover, parsley, and lettuce.
The plants, soil, water, and rocks or logs in your box turtle habitat also attract bugs and other invertebrates that turtles like to eat. Adult box turtles eat more vegetation than babies, and babies eat more meats/ proteins than adults.
Box Turtle Eating Mushroom
Flickr – Brad Carlson
Box turtles get the water that they need by eating vegetation and fruits as well as drinking from ponds and puddles. While they spend most of their lives on land, they do spend a lot of time in water – soaking, hunting, or drinking.
The vegetation and pond in your habitat allow your turtle to get the water they need.
Box Turtle in Water
Tyler Burgener
In the wild, box turtles prefer moist, forested areas but will venture into pastures and fields. Box turtles have excellent built-in protection from predators and other threats – their shells.
They also seek shelter under vegetation, logs, or rocks. During colder seasons, box turtles escape the weather by burrowing underground.
Box Turtle Under Leaf Litter
Tyler Burgener
Female box turtles dig holes in loose, sandy soil and deposit their eggs. They bury the eggs and leave them there to incubate over the next several weeks and hatch.
They do not provide any protection or care to the eggs or babies. Because of Alabama’s regulations, your school is not allowed to have breeding turtles.
Baby Box Turtle
Tyler Burgener
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#1: |
Box turtles’ gender is determined while they are in the egg by the temperature of the substrate surrounding the egg rather than genetics. This is called Temperature Dependent Sex Determination and is common among reptiles. If the eggs in the nest are warm (over 82 degrees Fahrenheit), the turtles are likely to be female. If the eggs not as warm (around 80 degrees Fahrenheit or lower) the turtles are likely to be male. |
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#2: |
Box turtle eggs are thick and leathery. Because of this, they develop a temporary sharp, hard knob on the tip of their upper beak called an “egg tooth” while they are in the egg. They use it to break out of their shell when they are ready to hatch. A few days after hatching, the egg tooth falls off. |
Box Turtle Eggs |
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#3: |
Eastern box turtles can live to be 30 years old quite regularly, but can sometimes even reach 50 years of age! |
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