Wood Turtle

The name "wood" suits this medium-sized turtle. Each angular plate of its six to eight-inch shell resembles a woodgrained cross-section of a tree branch, complete with growth rings and yellow rays radiating from a protruding blackflecked center. The bottom portion of the shell is yellow with each plate blotched with black along its side. On males, the lower portion is concave for mating. A black, blunt head and brown limbs are highlighted with orange or yellow on the throat and soft connecting flesh. Males have long, thick tails with the cloacal opening, or anus, located outside the shell's edge. Females have slighter tails with the cloacae opening within shell boundaries.

The wood turtle is also well-named because of its choice of habitat. It is semi-aquatic, living along forested rivers and streams. Active by day, April to November, wood turtles are omnivorous and consume insects, mussels, berries and succulent herbs. In late fall, wood turtles inhabit stream banks and hibernate over winter in large community burrows.

This turtle's North American range extends from Nova Scotia to eastern Minnesota, south to northeastern Iowa, east to Virginia and north to New York, and also Pennsylvania. It is now threatened or endangered in certain states within this range.

Wood turtles mature late and live as long as 58 years. They mate in spring and fall, in or out of water. Females dig nests in late May and June on communal gravel sites along banks or railroad beds. If the nest makes it through, a clutch of 4 to 17 white, smooth eggs laid in June will hatch in September. Gray hatchlings look awkward with tiny bodies and oversized tails.

Today's photo of two wood turtles engaging in a mating ritual was taken by WPC's Nick Pinizzotto on April 17, 2004 along the banks of Buffalo Creek along the Armstrong and Butler County border.

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