Bog Turtle

• Threatened for both the Pennsylvania and United States list

• Size
  • 4.5 of 4 1/2 inches long
• General Description
  • Bright yellow and/or orange patches on either side of head and neck.
  • Insides of legs have an orange-red wash.
  • Carapace (upper shell) is domed and somewhat rectangular with prominent rings of shell plates
  • Typically black but is sometimes highlighted with chestnut sunburst patterns.
  • The plastorn (under shell) is hing-less with a cream and black blotchy pattern.
  • The males plastorn is slightly concave and the females is flat.

• Can be found in Eastern U.S., Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Tennessee, and Georgia.
• Bog turtles enjoy cool, shallow, slow moving water, deep soft muck soils, wet meadows, boggy areas (BOG turtle) typically dominated by sphagnum moss
• Semi-aquatic
• Must have a fair amount of sunlight for basking and nesting

• Bog turtles are categorized as herbivores
• They tend to eat what they can get but they prefer invertebrates such as slugs, worms, and insects. Bog turtles also enjoy seeds, plant leaves, and carrion.

• Invasive species, which create a threat to the bog turtle are being controlled.
• Farmers are to keep better control of their animals

• The population dropped 50% in two decades.
• Captured and illegally traded.
• Poachers
• Increase in non-native vegetation.

• Bog turtles can live anywhere from 5 to 30 years or longer.

• Lay anywhere from 1 to 6 eggs
• Reach maturity as soon as age eight and as late as age eleven
• Male and female will mate April through June
• Females lay the eggs in June and July
• Eggs hatch in August and early September

• "Bog Turtle Slipping Away" http://www.fish.state.pa.us/education/catalog/ab/bogturtle/bogturtl.htm
• "Bog Turtle Fact Sheet NYS Department of environmental conservation" http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7164.html
• "Bog Turtle" http://www.edf.org/documents/3732_Species_Bog%20Turtle.pdf