A Turtle Fairwell

Tomorrow I will release the last of our box turtle study subjects.  After two years and countless miles and hours of field and lab work, the box turtle project will finally come to an end.  I’ve been so busy with life and work that I haven’t had a chance to update the blog.  A lot has changed this season.

After a winter hiatus, tracking started back up in mid-March, just as the turtles were emerging from hibernation.  All 30 animals survived the cold, and after climbing out of the soil and leaf litter, they took off in every direction with a vengeance.  We had become efficient trackers by the end of last season, but now the turtles were putting our skills to the test.  We once again chased them up and down ravines, across clearings, under fallen logs, and even to the edge of rocky cliffs.  We sweated in the heat of an unusually hot spring, and shivered in the early morning fog.  In order to get enough GPS points by the end of the project, our four day schedule was changed to a full seven (luckily I worked only 5 days each week).

Our little turtle team has grown substantially over the past year.  Where once there were just three of us, now some 16 volunteers have joined the party.  Most are wildlife, marine bio, or plant bio undergrads, as well as a group of students from Hocking college.  Marcel Weigand is still the brains behind the project, but preoccupied with her thesis, she has left the field work up to us.  I have since taken a leadership role on the project, co-leading the tracking and data collection and training new members.  My fellow leads include Christine Hanson—another wildlife undergrad, and Eva Garcia—a master’s student from France.  I can’t thank them all enough for their passion, dedication, and humor that kept us going throughout the season.  I have made some wonderful, mosquito-bitten friends.

The tracking season went as smoothly as could be expected.  I think we ruined about 10 of the telemetry cords, and used up more batteries than I care to admit.  We clipped the turtle’s nails just as we had last season (this time in the field) and took all their measurements.  We quickly realized that the epoxy holding the antennas to each of the turtles’ shells was beginning to break down.  By late June, Trevor slipped his transmitter—never to be seen again.  This unfortunate loss of data left us fearful that other turtles would soon go missing as well.  Shear luck led us to Lonesome George after he lost his transmitter under a fallen log.  

Many of the turtles once again traveled within meters of the road, but none ever attempted to cross—a puzzling relief.  Our data has shown that the effects of major roadways like the Nelsonville Bypass may be more complex than expected.  Turtles not killed on the road are not necessarily subject to higher stress than their control counterparts.  Likewise, we found little difference in home range size and habitat selection between sites.  What we did find interesting is the fact that female box turtles travel a lot more than males.  This is contrary to what the literature says for most turtle species.  We also verified a novel technique for measuring corticosterone as a proxy for stress in eastern box turtles, and added to our knowledge of mitigation and management requirements for this species. 

It was bitter sweet saying goodbye to our 30 study animals.  They had endured our research long enough, and it was time for them to be fully wild again.  Even after 2 years, I am still surprised by these animals almost every day.  Just when I think I’ve cracked these armored fiends, they prove me all wrong.  I suppose I’ll never completely understand them, and that’s the way it should be.  I have gotten to know these animals as individuals—each one special and unique.  Below, I have included a photo and description of nearly all our study subjects.  This project was for their benefit, and I hope our data can help to protect these remarkable reptiles long into the future.

Rumple-"scute"-skin

If I had to pick a favorite turtle it would probably be this one.  Rumple almost always stayed in the same field and surrounding woodland and was never shy when encountered.  He happily posed for photos, and rarely closed up his shell.  He was also one of the prettiest looking turtles I have ever seen.

Ethel

This turtle had one of the biggest home ranges of any of our study subjects.  She moved from the woods near where we parked, up and over the ravines, all the way to the roadside. She began our trend of naming these animals like old ladies.

Scar 

This old boy is named for his damaged shell.  We think that years ago a coyote chewed on him, causing his scutes to heal in a rugged pattern.  

Glados

A reliable female that likes to hang out not far from another turtle, Max.  She did occasionally hide from us in the soil or at the bottom of the ravines.

Zaphod

He may not have two heads, but this turtle moves enough that he might as well have his own spaceship. He proves that this project was full of excitement, adventure, and really wild things.

Penelope
This is the only turtle that bit me!  And she actually drew blood too.  Otherwise she is an attractively marked turtle that rarely gave us much trouble.

King George

One of our biggest males.  He's right up there with rumple as one of the favorites.  He is always on the move and usually crawls away while we are still taking his data.

Gertrude

This turtle traveled all the way from the parking area of our impact sight clear up to the ridge side!  I am always stunned where we end up finding this girl.

Hidey

This is the best picture I could get of the aptly named Hidey.  When trying to clip his nails, he stayed clamped in his shell for three days.

Rose

A reliable female that hangs out by the trail.  Turtles like Rose quickly became favorites in the heat of the summer.

Phil 

A little male who is always reliable.  Good job Phil!

Max 

He likes to hang out near Glados.  Those two are always good turtles to track.

Beyonce 

Definitely our most famous turtle.  She wasn't always named Beyonce, but she quickly earned the title. This turtle moved over a mile in a week, all the way from our control site to the Hocking College Nature Center in order to lay eggs.  She was our first clue to the fact that turtle tracking was not going to be easy.

Albert

A turtle that usually hangs out around the field in our control.  He is usually easy to find, although he occasionally will disappear on us for a few days.

Dorris

Dorris spent most of the active season in the open field adjacent to the bypass.  She regularly moved within 20 meters of the road, but thankfully, never attempted to cross.  She nearly gave me a heart attack each time I tracked her up to the brush along the right of way.

Lonesome George

This turtle gave us more grief than any other.  He came down with a serious upper respiratory infection that we feared was the deadly ranavirus. Luckily he was negative and even recovered well from his infection.  He is named Lonesome George after the last Galapagos Pinta Island tortoise because he stayed far away from any other turtle.

Poopzilla

She earned that name.  When we first opened the pencil case in which we carried this turtle back to the lab, there was more poop than turtle.  Despite her less than flattering name, the male turtles can't seem to get enough of Poopzilla.  We have found her mating with a large male nicknamed Romeo on multiple occasions.

Timber

I'm proud of this turtle's name.  Without fail we find him mixed in with fallen logs, branches, and other woody debris.

Bertha

This big female is the only turtle in our study that does not have red eyes (its a myth that you can tell the sexes apart by eye color).  She was almost certainly full of eggs when we found her. 

Bo   

A little male that likes to endlessly go up and down the ravines.  

Stumpy

One of my personal favorites.  Stumpy is missing both front and back legs on her right side. We worried she would be an outlier in the study, but she was able to travel just as much as any other animal.  She truly showed us how resilient these reptiles can be.

Sir Turt

Sir Tert was always eating.  Mushrooms, slugs, leaves, caterpillars.  Whenever we found him, his beak was covered in the goo of his last meal.

Lady Macbeth

The scars on this turtle's back earned her this name.  She has seen some stuff. Out, out.

Cofefe

My liberal is showing.

Storm 

Don't even get me started on Storm.  This turtle was the bane of our existence.  We found her in a torrential downpour halfway through the first season right on the trail.  She proceeded to take off down the steepest ravine at least a half mile from any other turtle. Ugh.

Five Alive

This turtle was always on the other side of the fence.  We would track in ravine one day and it would be on the other side.  The next day we would be at the ridge on the opposite side of the fence and this turtle would have crossed over in the meantime.  He evaded us in this way most of the season.

It feels like a lifetime ago that we found each of these animals with John Rucker and his trusty turtle dogs.  Marcel and I often fondly recall that week as the longest of our lives.  Last Tuesday, Marcel defended her thesis.  She passed of course, as we all knew she would.  But that didn't stop our lab’s collective blood pressure from sky rocketing in preparation for the big day.  It was a delight to watch Marcel present on our findings and accomplishments.  “A little more statistics, and this could easily be a PhD project,” Marcel told me.  Her talk was excellent, full of passion for the animals and hope for their long term survival.  The little classroom was packed wall to wall—it seemed everyone in the wildlife biology department wanted to hear about our turtles.  

The following day, the turtle team met one final time for a bon fire at Stroud's Run.  We gathered at the very same campsite where we had picked up John and his dogs every morning, now over a year ago.  It was a poetic ending to the coolest experience I have ever been a part of.  Marcel has begun the daunting task of writing the publication and looking for her next job.  I wish her luck in all her future endeavors.  Her passion and dedication in the face of so much adversity has inspired me to work as hard as I can each and every day.  

It really is the end of an era.  So where do I go from here?

Next week, I join Christine Hanson, Andrew Travers, and Dr. Popescu’s new PhD student, Matt Kaunert, on a trip to Pennsylvania in search of the world’s third largest salamander species.  I’ve wanted to see eastern hellbenders ever since I was a kid.  Now could be my chance. . .

A Turtle Team Update

Read part one HERE

As the weeks began to fly by, our little team of turtle researchers fell into a steady routine—or at least that’s what I would like to say.  Rather, each day brought new and unexpected hurdles and challenges.  “Adapt” quickly became the title of our project as we prepared ourselves for each new obstacle.  Mosquitos swarmed, turtles went AWOL, we contended with ticks and chiggers and horseflies, one of our 30 turtles came down with a serious upper respiratory infection (at first we feared it was the deadly Ranavirus, which could wipe out our entire population), equipment failed, and weather scorched our necks and drenched our boots (often within the span of just a few minutes).  

Throughout it all, we remained positive and optimistic.  After each grueling day in the heat and sun, Marcel and I often reflected on how lucky we were to be doing what we loved.  Each day brought the anticipation of finding something new: a coiled snake beneath cover or a young fawn spooked from its unseen hiding place.  We found immense beauty in the roadside groves and backwoods trails of our study sites.  We weren't trapped in the confines of an office; we were out experiencing life—not only our lives, but the lives of our turtles. 

Over the past several months, I have spent more time with these little cold-blooded, slow-moving, red-eyed, shell-toting, parrot-beaked, elephant-footed, scaly-skinned, mushroom-feasting creatures than I have with my own family.  The turtles' hardships became our hardships.  Their treks, our treks.  Their ailments, our ailments.  We struggled to remain detached and technical as the little round reptiles quickly stole our hearts.  They were both our companions and our study subjects.  Two conflicting states existing at once.  Schrodinger’s turtle.  

Turtle lesson number one: you cannot predict a turtle’s behavior.  Naturally, we tried.  Our initial labeling of turtle etiquette often coincided with gender.  “Oh, this female must have traveled here to lay eggs,” or “That male probably is searching for a mate—or maybe new territory.”  But these textbook explanations left us unsatisfied and missing the bigger picture.  In many instances, the turtles’ behaviors didn't appear to be oriented towards sex or egg laying—nor even feeding, travel, or obvious thermoregulation.  For all intents and purposes, one main activity appears to consume a box turtles' life.  Doing nothing.

Obviously box turtles do things.  They behave, they interact, they feed, breed, and live their turtle lives.  The fact that we so often found them apparently “doing nothing” simply exposes the limits of our human perception.  By our standards, a turtle sitting in the leaf litter is doing nothing.  But a turtle doesn't care about human standards.  To a turtle, its life is dynamic, fulfilled, chaotic, stressful, exciting, and unique.  Doing nothing is something.  The turtles chose to sit motionless in the leaf litter.  Somehow, it must be a survival strategy.  And it's working for them.  

Turtle researchers are a noisy and clumsy bunch.  It is entirely possible that moments before the turtles noticed us they were behaving.  Perhaps when they felt the vibrations of large bipedal apes lumbering, chatting, and snapping branches underfoot, they retreated into their shells and leafy forms (the shallow burrows box turtles dig with their front feet).  Once we had finished our data collection and moved on, the turtles could return to their previous activities.

I may be stepping brazenly close to anthropomorphizing box turtles, but that is a risk I take to understand them.  They are individuals, self-aware and distinct.  No two behave exactly alike.  As scientists, however, we record the things we can see and quantify.  So lets' talk about something we can see and quantify.  The early stages of our research have shown that, while humans aren’t looking, box turtles do quite a lot.  In particular, they are travelers.  

Our female Stumpy is missing both her front and back feet on the right side of her body.
Incredibly, she is able to move up and down the ravines just as much as any of our other turtles!

There does not appear to be a single time of day when all box turtles move (although the literature suggests early mornings and evenings are when box turtles are on average most active due to lower temperatures).  Movements seem to be up to each individual.  One turtle moving through an area doesn't appear to have an effect on others in the vicinity.  They come and go as they please.  Weather does play a factor.  Heavy rains cause many turtles to travel longer distances in a very short amount of time.  But not all.  

We rely on the turtles’ most recent “find points” to help us locate them quickly.  Plotted on a GPS this allows us to locate the spot where we last saw each turtle.  Sometimes this works.  A turtle might occasionally hang out in the same general area for a few days, maybe a week, possibly even a month.  Nearly all have eventually surprised us in one way or another.  They shoot off in seemingly random and bizarre directions.  They travel up and down ravines, from woods to field to woods again.  Some have traveled over a mile in just a few weeks.  I find myself trying to get inside these scaly creatures’ heads.  What are they thinking?  What makes them stay in one area and then travel somewhere identical or completely foreign at the drop of a hat?  Do they have a plan?  A set goal in mind?  There must be some motivation behind their behaviors—evidence of instinct, or intelligence.

"The wild field tech in its natural habitat." Photo courtesy of Marcel Weigand.  

It is surprising that turtles travel so much each day, and yet we almost never find them actively moving.  Not only do we find them not moving, but we often find them hunkered down in the leaf litter, half buried in their forms.  This would suggest that the turtles hadn't simply stopped moving after detecting our approach.  They weren't moving when we found them, and hadn't been moving for some time.  North American box turtles are strictly diurnal, so their treks must be happening during the day.  So why weren't we seeing them out walking across the forest floor?  There were moments when it felt like some sort of cosmic prank.  We were like children pondering the origin of the morning dew.

"Still life with Terrapene #TalkTurtlesToMe." Photo Courtesy of Marcel Weigand.

For now, I will have to be content with not knowing.  It is somehow comforting that even under such intensive observation these turtles can still keep so much of their lives a secret.  We do science at the mercy of our study subjects.  If the turtles refuse to reveal their true nature, there is nothing we can do but wait and watch.  As animals go, reptiles often get a bad rap.  They are rarely thought of as sophisticated, and yet, they have managed to outsmart us scientists on countless occasions.  Turtles are humble creatures; they are even more humbling to work with.

"Best Olympic Dive of the day goes to ... #LeapinForLizards.""
Photo courtesy of Marcel Weigand.

My season as a turtle field technician is drawing to a close.  I am heading back to school shortly and will be forced to leave the woods and fields behind (at least until the weekends).  I have grown immensely as a young scientist, as has my appreciation for the natural world.  I feel incredibly lucky to have been given a glimpse into the daily lives of box turtles.  To get to know a wild creature so intimately is no small thing and something I will forever cherish.  

Photo courtesy of Marcel Weigand.

I will continue to work on the box turtle project throughout the year with Marcel, helping in the field whenever my schedule allows.  I have a few more posts from this field season that I plan to write, in particular, the process behind testing our nail samples for corticosterone.  If all goes according to plan I will be back out next season turtle hunting again.  My endless thanks go to Marcel for being my mentor and friend, Dr. Popescu for welcoming me into his lab, my parents for their support and enthusiasm, and everyone else whom I have met and worked with this summer. 

Turtles in Trouble: A Brief Natural History

For many, an encounter with a box turtle was their first childhood interaction with a wild creature.  There is something intrinsically wonderful about these little, rotund, bright-eyed reptiles.  Like rocks that can suddenly sprout eyes, limbs, and a short tail, box turtles seem to emerge from the woodwork as if from nowhere.  They delight us as they march through our backyards and gardens, in their single-minded pursuit of snails and earthworms.  Take a step too close, and they will quickly retreat into their high-domed shells with a little, nervous huff.  Inspection of the shell reveals a hard, well-crafted exterior, marked with elegant, yellow lines and blotches.  The surface is smooth or lightly ridged with tiny annuli like the rings of a tree.  Place the turtle back down, and within minutes two little eyes will be peeking out.

As a young boy, watching my Grandmother’s next-door neighbor’s turtle “Chip,” I never imagined that one day I would be part of a study focusing on box turtles (you can read about my experiences HERE).  These turtles brought nature to life for me as a youth, and now I was helping to increase our knowledge of how to protect them.  Box turtles, and the rest of their reptilian conspecifics, are in dire need of more people who understand them and recognize their peril.  Our turtles are in trouble. 

Northern Map Turtle

To fully understand our shelled companions, we must travel back 200 million years, to the late Triassic.  Here, an animal quite similar in appearance to modern day turtles, evolved.  This strange new creature made some amazing modifications to the vertebrate body plan.  Every piece of its anatomy had to be rearranged and adapted to fit inside a bony box.  The shoulder girdle moved inside the rib cage, which in turn fused together, encapsulating the internal organs.  The turtle’s spinal cord actually runs right down the center of the carapace (upper shell).

Midland Painted Turtle

Unique among vertebrates, the shell combined two types of bone: the shallow dermal bone and the strong, internal endochondral bone.  The surface became covered in a protective layer of large keratin scales (the same substance our fingernails and hair are made of) called scutes.  A turtle is its shell, and a shell is its turtle.  The commonly mis-held belief that a turtle can come out of its shell sounds perfectly ridiculous once you understand turtle anatomy.  

Why would turtles embark on such a strange evolutionary track?  This question is still a mystery that scientists struggle to understand.  Today, the shell’s main purpose is that of protection, but what evolutionary pressures drove its development, we can only guess.  One thing is clear, however, turtles have been extremely successful as their world has changed around them.  They survived the catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs, and persist in great abundance to this day.

Northern Map Turtles

Turtles are an iconic and easily recognized group.  They are split into the pleurodires, or side-necks, and the cryptodires, or hidden-necks (such as our familiar North American turtles).  The smallest species, the African padloper tortoises, grow to fewer than four inches in length.  Giants can be found on both land and sea.  The famous Galapagos tortoises can weigh over 500 lbs.  The largest of all living turtle species, the bizarre leatherback, can attain a length of almost six feet and a wingspan of nine feet.  This sea turtle has some decidedly unreptilian characteristics.  It has sacrificed its tough scales for leathery skin, and may even be able to regulate its internal body temperature like a mammal.  This allows it to swim into much colder and deeper waters than other sea turtles.

Snapping turtle laying eggs

Turtles are among the first of Ohio’s reptiles to emerge in spring, and among the last to disappear in fall.  Being ectotherms (cold-blooded), turtles need warm temperatures in order to become active, and can be seen out on logs basking during sunny days.  Most of the 12 turtle species found in Ohio are semi-aquatic, though a few, like the box turtle and the wood turtle, are more terrestrial and found in woodlands.

Snapping turtle egg

Early spring is the nesting season, and one of the few times when aquatic turtles venture any significant distance from their watery homes.  Females dig shallow ditches in loose soil, above the water line, in which to deposit their white, leathery eggs.  Turtle eggs are a favorite meal of raccoons; stream banks are often found littered with the shells of raided nests.  Many of Ohio’s turtle species (excluding the softshells) exhibit temperature dependent sex determination.  This means that the temperature at which the eggs develop dictates whether the eggs will hatch as males or females. Turtles do not care for their young.  Hatchlings emerge miniature versions of the adults, and are completely self reliant.  A hike near suitable pond, river, or forest habitat will almost certainly result in a glimpse of one of these timid reptiles.  

Despite living on land, box turtles are not tortoises.  Tortoises belong to the family Testudinidae, while box turtles belong to the family Emydidae—the pond turtles.  Taxonomy is based off of evolutionary relationships; members of a family are each others' closest relatives.  Box turtles are Terrapenes, a genus of pond turtle that has (with one exception) left the water for a primarily terrestrial life.  There are four species of Terrapenes: the eastern box turtle, ornate box turtle, spotted box turtle, and (the aquatic) coahuilan box turtle.  

The Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) is Ohio’s most terrestrial turtle species, found primarily in the southern half of the state.  They are short and stout reptiles, growing 5 to 6 inches in carapace (upper shell) length.  With the help of a hinged plastron (lower shell), these turtles can conceal their legs, head, and tail tightly within their shells—one of the few turtle species with this ability.  Box turtles are incredibly varied in appearance; no two look exactly alike.  Some are large, with prominent flaring around the shell, while others are small and rounded like a baseball.  Colors and patterns range from showy streaks of orange or even red, to unassuming spots of pale yellow.

It is a myth that the sexes can be told apart by the color of the eyes.  Females and males both have red eyes, and occasionally females and juveniles will have brownish eyes.  The best way to tell males from females is by the shell.  Females have a very high-domed carapace, and a flat plastron.  Males have a much lower carapace, and a concave plastron (helpful for mating).  Large, young-adult males will typically display pronounced fringes along the rear edge of the shell.  With age, the shells of both males and females weather and wear until they are smooth and rounded. 

Eastern box turtles are homebodies—living out their entire lives in an area of just 1 to 5 hectares (.0038 to .019 square miles).  They are primarily a woodland and edge species, though they can be found soaking in shallow pools in the heat of summer.  Turtles living in the same area often have overlapping home ranges.  Neither females nor males are territorial and they do not defend against interlopers.  It is not uncommon to find clusters of box turtles, with individuals only feet from one another, each apparently minding their own business.  The social dynamics of box turtles are not well understood.  It seems likely that turtles communicate with pheromones to a certain extent.  Pheromones certainly play a role in spring and summer when the turtles must find one another to mate.

Copulating pairs of box turtles have been found at all times of the active season, from early spring to late fall.  Mating can last several hours, during which the male’s rear legs are locked in the female's shell, holding him at an awkward 45 degree angle with the ground.  By storing sperm, females can produce viable clutches for years without the need to mate.  

Gravid (pregnant) females may travel a great distance from their home range to search for the perfect nesting location.  The female will dig a shallow hole in loose, sandy soil, and deposit 3 to 6 eggs.  Incubation lasts between 2 and 3 months, after which inch-long hatchlings emerge by midsummer.  The vast majority of box turtle hatchlings fall victim to predators like raccoons, skunks, and weasels.  It will take close to 10 years for a box turtle to reach sexual maturity.  Once a turtle has reached adult size, its chances of survival increase dramatically—some box turtles have been known to live well over a hundred years.                   

Turtles are known for being slow, and box turtles are no exception.  They have been nicknamed “sticky heels” for their plotting and awkward gait.  The slow and steady nature of turtles has helped them to survive for millennia, but in today’s age of the automobile, box turtles may have met their match.  Deforestation and land use changes have eliminated thousands of acres of turtle habitat.  Where they still survive, the criss-crossing of roads has created deadly barriers for these natural transients.  Turtles moving to lay eggs or to search out new home ranges inevitably find themselves crossing busy roadways.  It is unknown how many turtles perish on roads each day in the U.S., but the numbers likely reach the thousands.  Highways are particularly devastating for slow-moving herpetofauna like turtles, snakes, salamanders, and frogs.  In the span of just a few hours, I have moved more than a dozen box turtles from a single stretch of road in southern Ohio.  

Roads aren’t the only threat to box turtles.  Collecting for the pet trade and foreign markets has decimated turtle populations around the world.  Box turtles seem to hold a particular appeal as pets.  People who don't run over a turtle often decide to take the animal home with them.  Most of these impromptu turtle keepers know little of box turtle husbandry, and the captive turtles invariably waste away and succumb from improper care.  Despite wild turtles making poor pets, the commercial sale of box turtles continues in this country.  Thousands of turtles are exported to Europe and Asia and sold on the black market as pets and food.  This has put an unsustainable demand on these slow-to-reproduce reptiles. 

Deforestation, burning and mowing grasslands where turtles bask and nest, and a host of diseases have slowly but surely reduced North America’s healthy box turtle populations to disturbingly low numbers.  28 states have laws protecting box turtles, preventing the sale of wild-caught individuals.  In Ohio, box turtles are listed as a species of concern, though they are still considered common.  

When asked, “Why protect box turtles?” turtle-dog trainer John Rucker put it eloquently: “We don't really know what role they play.  But we do know that if we lose the turtles, we lose the checks and balances that keep nature in harmony.”  As both predators and prey, box turtles serve an important role transferring energy through the food web.  Without them, we don't know how the health and the diversity of the ecosystem would be affected.  Ignorance is not an excuse to lose our turtles.  They have existed far longer than we have, and deserve to continue their existence long into the future. 

They may not be fast or flashy, but box turtles speak to our humility and patience.  For as long as humans have studied them, turtles have been synonymous with longevity and time.  They are a creature to sit with in moments of reflection.  Next time you find a box turtle, stretch out in the leaf litter next to it.  Peer up through the undergrowth, and just watch the world go by.