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
Twenty-three stomachs of adults were selected at random (except for
the fact that empty stomachs were discarded) from more than a hundred
specimens collected in Douglas County, Kansas, in the period from
June, 1954, to June, 1957; the sample included stomachs obtained in
nearly all the months of the season of activity. Kinds of foods in
stomachs did not differ significantly in regard to the sex of the
turtles or to time of year. The stomach of each of two juveniles
(included in Table 6) contained a greater variety of animal food than
did the stomach of any adult, but no kind of animal was eaten by the
juveniles exclusively.
Each of the 23 stomachs contained animal matter and, in addition, all
but two contained at least some plant material from dung, which
constituted up to 20 per cent of total stomach contents.
Insects were present in each of the 23 stomachs and constituted the
bulk of the animal matter; beetles, caterpillars, and grasshoppers
(ranked in descending order) were the kinds occurring most frequently
and constituting the largest average percentages of total
stomach-contents. Most of the beetles were scarabaeids and carabids;
the bulk of the caterpillars were noctuids and arctiids. Grasshoppers,
with one exception, were of a single species, _Melanoplus
differentialis_. It is noteworthy that two of the kinds of insects
frequently eaten (differential grasshoppers and noctuid caterpillars)
are of economic importance in that they damage crops.
TABLE 6.--Kinds of Animals Found in the Stomachs of 25 _Terrapene o.
ornata_ of Both Sexes (23 adults, 2 juveniles) from Douglas
County, Kansas. Frequency of Occurrence (number of stomachs in
which found) is Given for Each Item Listed.
=======================================+=============================
| FREQUENCY OF OCCURRENCE
|--------+-----------+--------
| Adults | Larvae | Total
---------------------------------------+--------+-----------+--------
Gastropoda | | |
_Helisoma_ sp | 1 | | 1
_Succinia_ sp | 1 | | 1
_Polygyra_ sp | 1 | | 1
_Retinella_ sp | 1 | | 1
---------------------------------------+--------+-----------+--------
Crustacea | | |
_Procambaris gracilis_ | 1 | | 1
_Armadillidium vulgare_ | 4 | | 4
---------------------------------------+--------+-----------+--------
Orthoptera (Locustidae) | | |
Locustinae (_Melanoplus | | |
differentialis_) | 13 | | 13
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