Common Box Turtle

About the Common Box Turtle

The common box turtle (Terrapene carolina) is a species of box turtle with five existing subspecies. It is found throughout the Eastern United States and Mexico. The box turtle has a distinctive hinged lower shell that allows it to completely enclose itself, like a box. Its upper jaw is hooked.

The turtle is primarily terrestrial and eats a wide variety of plants and animals. The females lay their eggs in the summer. Turtles in the northern part of their range hibernate over the winter. Common box turtle numbers are declining because of habitat loss, roadkill, and capture for the pet trade. The species is classified as vulnerable to threats to its survival by the IUCN Red List. Two states have chosen subspecies of the common box turtle as their official state reptile: T. c. carolina in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Terrapene carolina was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. It is the type species for the genus Terrapene and has more subspecies than the other three species within that genus. The eastern box turtle subspecies was the one recognized by Linnaeus. The other four subspecies were first classified during... Wikipedia →