Natural History of the Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata AgassizLegler, John M.
Science
Natural History of the Ornate Box Turtle, Terrapene ornata ornata Agassiz
Legler, John M.
Ornate box turtle
Although grass fires usually occur in early spring or late fall when
box turtles are underground, some turtles are surely killed by fires
and many are injured. In early April of 1955 the pasture at the Damm
Farm was burned. Similar burnings, I discovered, had occurred both
intentionally and accidently in past years at irregular intervals. No
deaths or injuries, attributable to fire were discovered in the course
of intensive field work in the spring and summer of 1955, when the new
grass was short and conditions for finding and marking box turtles
were ideal. Badly burned individuals, if any, may have secreted
themselves until their wounds had healed. In June, 1957, an adult
female, that had been burned severely, was taken from a small puddle
in a ravine on the Damm Farm. The soft parts of her body, excepting
her head and neck, were a nearly solid mass of smooth scar tissue, the
scales and rugosities of the skin being practically obliterated. The
tail was reduced to a mere knob surrounding the anus and dead, exposed
bone was visible on most of the dorsal part of the carapace. Possibly
this female was burned in the fire of 1955. Lack of injury to the head
and neck can probably be accounted for by the additional protection
afforded these parts by the folded forelegs when the turtle was
withdrawn in the shell.
Turtles that are smashed flat on the highway, of course, have no
chance of survival. Highway fatalities are usually the result either
of "direct hits," where the tire of a vehicle passes directly over the
turtle, or of repeated pummeling by subsequently passing vehicles. The
writer, while driving behind other cars that struck turtles or by
sitting beside roads, has observed numerous turtle casualties. Most
are struck a glancing blow by a tire and are propelled some distance
through the air or on the surface of the pavement, often to the side
of the road. Such a blow is usually sufficient to crack or chip the
shell, or at least to scuff away parts of the epidermal covering.
Turtles, so injured, usually survive.
Parts of the shell do not break away easily, even when several deep
cracks are present, and only a little bleeding occurs. A common injury
inflicted on the highway is the wrenching and subsequent dislocation
of the carapaco-plastral articulation. In such instances the
ligamentous tissue joining the two parts is torn extensively. Under
these circumstances the movable shell parts seem to act as a safety
device, giving way under pressure that would crack the shell of a
turtle with rigid, fixed buttresses. Dislocations of the
carapaco-plastral articulation that have healed are characterized by
abnormally heavy development of ligamentous tissue, which may
elaborate a horny, scutelike substance on its outer surface.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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