(uplifting music)
- You know, Chris always talks about
how box turtles started this all for him.
But I'd have to say, you know, I grew up with them too.
I lived in a beautiful area
that was full of farms and forests.
And I was always in the woods.
And every year we'd have this
black and yellow box turtle visit our yard.
And I was probably five, six years old,
thinking back this box turtle looked like
it was this big cause you're a kid.
Everything looks big. Right?
And now that I'm older and I've seen all these
different variations of box turtles.
I'd still have to say the Eastern Box Turtle,
has to be one of my favorites.
So in this video we're gonna highlight
the beautiful Eastern Box Turtle.
(uplifting music)
- So right here, this is the
most well known of the box turtles.
This is the Eastern Box Turtle, Terpene Carolina Carolina.
Also known as the Common Box Turtle
or the Woodland Box Turtle.
This is the turtle that started it all for me.
And for many of us out there.
Behind you is one of our Eastern Box Turtle pens.
And you might say, we cheated.
We bought this property. We own this property.
But box turtles do naturally occur here.
So what we did was,
fence in a little section of our property,
which is their natural habitat.
And then we just went ahead
and put our box turtles in there.
Of course we made sure there were no wild ones in there.
And I'm gonna take you guys into the pen
and I'm gonna show you the crazy amount of differences
with all the colors and it's pretty cool.
This is a very, very unique turtle,
that comes in all kinds of combinations as far as colors go.
All right, so we're gonna fight the bugs
and we're gonna go into this pen and look for 'em.
And it's not easy to find them,
but that's how you know, things are working.
Because the pen is so wild like, that they are able to hide
and really kind of stay out of focus.
And that's good for them. It keeps them de-stressed.
(calming music) (birds chirping)
(leaves crunching)
Okay. I see a bunch.
(leaves crunching)
So right underneath all this honey suckle,
we got a bunch of them.
You see 'em all under there?
Here's, come here girl.
A beautiful female. Look at that.
Beautiful yellow on her shell.
Another one that's yellow.
Look at that, she's almost got like
starbursts on her carapace, gorgeous.
The contrast on the Eastern Box Turtle
is really kind of unmatched.
I mean, it's an opinion
but I just find them absolutely striking.
(leaves crinkling)
There's a little one.
It's a little one that's been growing up in the pen.
It's possible this one is its mother, kind of similar.
You'd see that, you know,
the juvenile Eastern Box Turtles
are really just mini versions of the adults.
But that's not the case with newborn hatchlings.
(grass crunching) (relaxing music)
Here we go.
One of my favorite things about the Eastern Box Turtle,
is the sheer difference between the male and female.
So this is a young male right here.
And just look at the intensity of his color.
Females can be orange or yellow
and males can be orange or yellow.
And they can even have whites on them and reds and blues.
You guys I'm sure have seen the video
of the blue box turtle, that I'm tracking for the state.
And if you haven't, click the link above me.
They really just have absolutely outstanding coloration.
And these are not morphs folks. This is nature.
This is how they naturally occur.
(relaxing music)
She's gonna make her way back in there
where she could stay hidden, go ahead.
And if you guys look here,
see this disturbance.
This most likely is a nest.
And the reason I know that is
because we are literally at the tail end now
of the natural nesting season of the Eastern Box Turtle.
And this is what it looks like,
after they nest, after they've covered it up.
And also this is the favorite area in the pen
cause this is what gets the direct sunlight.
So just gotta carefully feel around.
Oh yep. I think this is one.
See how the ground is just caving in right there.
We have eggs. We do.
We have eggs. We have eggs. We have eggs.
Okay, here we go. Ready?
So these were most likely laid last night.
One, two,
three, four.
(relaxing music)
I think that's it.
That's it. Four eggs.
Typical size clutch for an Eastern Box.
Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.
Cover that back up in case another female
wants to use this spot. There we go.
(relaxing music)
So for anybody that might be curious,
telling the difference between male and female box turtles
is not that hard when they're fully mature.
You can see the male has massive rear feet
and really deeply, hooked claws.
His legs are also very long and overall,
the rear feet and legs almost look as though
they're not really proportionate to the rest of his body.
The female has powerful rear feet and legs,
but they are smaller and more petite.
When you look at the plastron, which is the bottom shell.
The male is concave. The female is level or flat.
The male has the concavity so that he could fit
on the back of the female during breeding.
When you look at the tails,
this isn't the easiest thing to see in box turtles.
It's a lot easier in aquatic turtles.
The male has a little bit of a thicker, longer tail,
with a vent that's further away from the end of the shell.
The female is the exact opposite.
Now, big thing with Eastern Box Turtles is color.
Usually the female has less color than the male.
Now, when you look at these two, you can see this female
has more color on her shell than the male does.
But look at the skin.
The male's head is way more vibrant, bolder markings.
The female is not.
And last but not least is that eye color.
The male is known for having those fluorescent,
red eyes that just kind of peer through your soul.
And females are classically known for having brown
or yellow eyes, but that's not always the case.
So here's why this is not always the case.
This little female right here in my left hand.
And yes this is a fully mature, older egg-laying female,
has red eyes.
They're not as fluorescent red as a males
but they are a true red and they're a deep red.
When you look at the more classic female,
here in my right hand.
You can see she has more of that brown, orange
and even yellow going on.
One last thing I wanna show you guys is, you know,
we're used to seeing the variation in the head,
the eyes and the top shell.
But when you look at the plastron, the bottom, look at that.
Same type of turtle.
We've got yellow and brown and then we've got jet black.
So never underestimate the amazing variability
of the Eastern Box Turtle.
No two are anything alike.
Just to throw one last wrench into it for you guys.
Sometimes on a rare occasion, you may see a box turtle
like Skellington here, who has white eyes.
That's right. He has more of a whitish pink eye
instead of a true red or a fluorescent red,
but he is in fact, a fully grown, mature male.
(relaxing music) (birds chirping)
(leaves crunching)
- So this actual pen here, was clearly not planted by us.
This is just some homegrown front yard.
When we bought the property,
we lucked out with this type of landscape,
for the Eastern Box Turtles.
We have some Atlantic White Cedar.
We have Oak trees, Honeysuckle, Pitch Pines,
which is one of Chris's favorites.
They actually create an awesome substrate
for these box turtles with that acidity from the pine.
Also we have some wild strawberries that grow in here
that the turtles love to eat.
So this is a pretty cool spot for 'em.
They kind of have everything they need right here.
(relaxing music)
So box turtles are actually considered semi terrestrial
but they do spend some time in water.
You can see we have this nice shallow pool here
for them to go into, in their naturalistic habitat.
Anything too deep might cause them to drown.
So we like to keep it nice and shallow.
We have these rough edges here.
They can climb out in.
They move pretty quick in the water, surprisingly.
And they can fully submerge.
This little female here is hanging out,
cooling off on this really hot day.
And sometimes they even forage in here to find some insects.
(relaxing music)
So one of the coolest things about Eastern Box Turtles
is the differences in colors.
So some of them are these like deep red,
orange, rusty colors.
And some of them are these neon yellows
but not a lick of orange in them.
So you never know what you're gonna get
when you help them cross the road.
Is it gonna be orange? Is it gonna be yellow?
They can be brown.
This female here, you can see,
she's got some pretty bright orange legs
but then she's got some yellow to her carapace here.
She's beautiful. I really can't get over her coloration.
This may seem really obscure and bright to us,
but they do blend right in with the forest floor,
especially here with this orange pine litter that we have.
The other cool thing that box turtles are notorious for
is they can seal up completely.
So this is their hinge here.
And they tuck their head, their legs, everything inside
and completely evade, any kind of predation,
from raccoons or fox or skunk,
whatever's gonna go after them.
So for a box turtle, to be able to completely seal up,
it kind of omits any kind of predation in that way.
(uplifting music)
So Eastern Box Turtles are omnivorous.
They're split right down the middle,
as far as vegetation and meat goes.
They do eat lots of insects, snails, worms.
They'll even eat small rodents.
But as far as vegetation goes,
they'll eat wild strawberries, blackberries, blueberries,
and they're even capable of eating poisonous mushrooms.
(uplifting music)
So Terpene Carolina Carolina or the Eastern Box Turtle
has such a wide range in the United States.
They are found crossing the road all too often.
Unfortunately, when they do get hit,
it's devastating to the population.
They only lay between two and five eggs per clutch.
So losing that one female can really hurt.
They're not like Snapping Turtles or for that matter,
Socotra Tortoises laying these huge clutches of eggs.
So please watch out for them when they're crossing.
After a rainstorm, on a warm day, they're gonna be out.
So keep an eye out.
- So I grew up with box turtles
and well, now you guys are right.
What is this?
- Box turtle.
- Yeah. What kind of box turtle?
- Eastern.
Yeah, it's an Eastern that's right.
(Chris chuckling)
You know, Eastern Box Turtles are
by far one of the most common turtles
that we give homes to here at Garden State Tortoise.
Second only to the Red-eared Slider, really.
They come to us through confiscations,
through wildlife agencies,
surrenders through zoos and keepers.
Unfortunately we get some that are in really bad shape.
And then sometimes we luck out
and they're in really good shape.
But a lot goes into doing this correctly.
A fish tank or a little wooden box
is no life for a box turtle, whatsoever.
So we've really gone the route here
to dedicate the property to not just box turtles,
but all different types of reptiles
as you guys have seen in many of our videos.
But you know, we lucked out with that corner habitat
over there where we just sectioned in
a piece of the woods here on our property
and then added a pond.
But all the other enclosures for the most part,
on this property, were hand built by Casey and I.
With the exception of the Aquascape pond,
that Aquascape put in for us.
So my point is we're dedicated to them
and there's a lot of heartbreak
that comes along with it too.
You know, I can't tell you how many of these turtles
are getting destroyed by cars every single day,
right on our road.
Wild populations of turtles
are taking serious tolls from motor vehicles.
We try to intervene as much as we can.
And we did do that video,
that we hope you guys learned a lot from,
on how to safely move a turtle across the road.
But the Eastern Box Turtle is one of the prime candidates
for suffering on roads.
But all hope is not lost for the Eastern Box Turtle
and other species of turtle.
Because there are people like us and you out there,
that are trying to make a difference.
Box turtles are protected throughout much of their range.
I think almost everywhere that they occur,
maybe everywhere, but certain places.
It is legal to keep them.
If you get your hands on captive bred stock.
Captive breeding these animals is one of the reasons
that they will still be around in nature.
There are wonderful conservation projects going on
but it is also responsible, captive breeding,
that is gonna make sure that Eastern Box Turtles
as well as many other species of turtle
are around for not just us
but our precious children to enjoy.
(uplifting music)