Species Fact Profile: Wood Turtle (Glyptemys insculpta)

    Wood Turtle
                          Glyptemys insculpta (Le Conte, 1830)

Range: Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States

Habitat:  Temperate Forests, usually in association with moving freshwater, especially sand-bottomed streams.  Sometimes occur in wetlands or meadows. 

Diet: Leaves, Flowers, Fruits, Fungi, Invertebrates

Social Grouping: Solitary

Reproduction: Mating takes place throughout the active season, but most often in spring and fall. Females nest in May or June, digging nest cavities about 5-13 centimeters deep in sandy, sunny areas near water.  3-18 (usually 5-13) eggs are laid and buried, the site smoothed over by the female for camouflage.   No further parental care.  Females often breed every other year.  Incubation period 47-69 days.  Juveniles are 2.8-3.8 centimeters long at time of hatching.  Sexual maturity reached at 14-20 years of age, can breed for decades.

Lifespan: 40-60 Years

      Conservation Status: IUCN Endangered, CITES Appendix I

•       Carapace length 16-25 centimeters, males slightly larger than females.  Weigh up to 1 kilogram. Males and females generally similar, but adult males have wider heads, higher, more domed carapaces, concave plastrons, and longer, thicker tails
•       Carapace is brown or gray-brown, flattened with a low central keel, sometimes with radiating yellow patterning on the scutes of the keel.  Scutes have a rough, sculptured appearance that gives the species name.  Plastron is yellow with a black blotch at the rear outer corner of each scute.  Plastron is not hinged.  The head is black, sometimes with light-colored markings.  Skin of the throat, lower neck, and the lower surface of the legs can be a red-orange       
•       Males may fight for access to females.  Courtship involves a dance in which the male and female face each other, swinging back and forth.  Then, the male may nip at the female and pursue her before mounting and copulating.  Copulation often takes place is shallow water.        
•       Unlike many closely related turtles, incubation temperature does not determine hatchling sex.  
•       Predators include snapping turtles, raccoons, otters, and foxes (mostly predate young turtles).  Also susceptible to leech parasitism – a major purpose of basking may be to dislodge leeches
•       Hibernate during the cooler months (October through April in northern US), often in shallow streams, sometimes in muskrat burrows.  Less often will hibernate on dry land.  Active by day, spending much of the time basking.  During periods of very hot weather it may estivate. 
•       Found in much denser populations in the south than the north.  Not especially territorial.  Typically remain faithful to home ranges and do not wander.  They do, however, have good navigational and homing skills; turtles removed 8 kilometers from their home range and then released have been able to find their way back
•       Slow feeders, incapable of capturing fast-moving prey such as fish, but will opportunistically eat whatever they can find, including carrion, eggs, and baby rodents in nests
•       Have been observed thumping on the ground with either the forefeet or the plastron, the vibrations of which may cause earthworms to emerge from the ground where they can be taken
•       Genus name translates to “Carved Turtle,” species name to “sculpted.”  
•       Direct removal from habitat by humans is primary cause of decline.  Historically have been heavily collected for food, laboratory use, and for the pet trade.  Other threats include road mortality and human vandalism.  One previously unexploited population was almost completely wiped out within a decade of exposure to humans
•       Also threatened by habitat loss and disturbance.  Tolerant of some habitat usage (logging, agriculture), but heavy machinery and kill turtles and destroy nesting sites.  Aquaculture often involves destruction of prime nesting locations.  Human activities have resulted in growth of raccoon populations, which increase predation pressure on nests
•       Considered one of the most intelligent of turtles; laboratory specimens can learn and navigate a maze as well as a rat can