page_title: Common box turtle
section_title: Behavior
hierarchical_section_title: Common box turtle / Behavior
caption_attribution_description: English: Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene Carolina carolina) digging a hole and laying eggs in Fairfax, Virginia. Polski: Żółw (Terrapene Carolina carolina) kopie dołek i składa jajka w Fairfax, Wirginia.
context_page_description: The common box turtle is a species of box turtle with six existing subspecies. It is found throughout the Eastern United States and Mexico. The box turtle has a distinctive hinged lowered shell that allows it to completely enclose itself. Its upper jaw is long and curved.
  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. Three U.S. states name subspecies of the common box turtle as their official reptile.
context_section_description: Common box turtles are predominantly terrestrial reptiles that are often seen early in the day, or after rain, when they emerge from the shelter of rotting leaves, logs, or a mammal burrow to forage. These turtles have an incredibly varied diet of animal and plant matter, including earthworms, slugs, insects, wild berries, and sometimes even animal carrion.
  In the warmer summer months, common box turtles are more likely to be seen near the edges of swamps or marshlands, possibly in an effort to stay cool. If common box turtles do become too hot, (when their body temperature rises to around 32 °C), they smear saliva over their legs and head; as the saliva evaporates it leaves them comfortably cooler. Similarly, the turtle may urinate on its hind limbs to cool the body parts it is unable to cover with saliva.
  Courtship in the common box turtle, which usually takes place in spring, begins with a "circling, biting and shoving" phase. These acts are carried out by the male on the female. Following some pushing and shell-biting, the male grips the back of the female's shell with his hind feet to enable him to lean back, slightly beyond the vertical, and mate with the female.  Remarkably, female common box turtles can store sperm for up to four years after mating, and thus do not need to mate each year.
  In May, June or July, females normally lay a clutch of 1 to 11 eggs into a flask-shaped nest excavated in a patch of sandy or loamy soil. After 70 to 80 days of incubation, the eggs hatch, and the small hatchlings emerge from the nest in late summer. In the northern parts of its range, the common box turtle may enter hibernation in October or November. They burrow into loose soil, sand, vegetable matter, or mud at the bottom of streams and pools, or they may use a mammal burrow, and will remain in their chosen shelter until the cold winter has passed. The common box turtle has been known to attain the greatest lifespan of any vertebrate outside of the tortoises. One specimen lived to be at least 138 years of age.
caption: Egg-laying
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D80", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:27 20:53:05", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "144", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:27 20:53:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:27 20:53:05", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "80", "EXIF SubSecTime": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3872", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "120", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Hard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}