Coyote Call

Hello Everyone!

My name is Megan and I am one of the summer wildlife conservations interns here at PWC! I’m very excited to release my first post and I hope that it is both interesting and informative and provides a window into what interns like me do with our time.

Leigh Farm Park, where PWC is located, has a substantial population of Eastern Box Turtles. When any campers,councelors, or staff discover one, we bring them back to the cabin and record a bunch of information about them and then release them to exactly where we found them. This is important because box turtles maintain a territory of their own inside which they know where all of the resources necessary to them are located. This is what we do:

1. Determine the conditions of where the turtle was caught including air temperature, sky index, time of last rain, type of habitat the turtle was found in, how it was found, and the coordinates of the turtle at the time of capture. We use the program Google Earth to plot the coordinates and name of each turtle we find so that we can see where all of our turtles have been caught and where repeat turtles have traveled.
2. Acquire the box turtle’s weight and measure the shell, the upper carapace and lower plastron, from certain points.
3. Those distinct sections of the turtles shell that look like patches on a soccer ball are each called scutes. The central scutes run down the back where the spine is located and the costal scutes are the sections on either side of the central scutes. The outer ring of scutes are called the marginal scutes. By counting the annuli on the central or costal scutes, we can get a rough estimate of the age of the turtle. The annuli are the rings found inside each scute that, much like a tree’s rings, can be counted as one year per ring.
4. Determine the gender to the best of our ability of the box turtle using 5 physical characteristics that differ in males and females (I will list them at the end of this post).
5. Take a few clippings of the nails of the turtle that we place in a vial of fluid to be sent to a lab for DNA testing.
6. And, finally, we use a method of identification that allows us to identify the turtle if we were to recapture the same turtle which I will now explain: Remember scutes? Now we’re going to talk about the marginal scutes. The tiny scute right behind the turtle’s head is not counted in this process. When looking down at the turtle shell with the bum facing you, the scutes are labeled with letters of the alphabet, starting with “A” and going clockwise. Between scutes “L” and “M” is the tail of the turtle and if you continue to label them all the way back up to the head, the last scute before you get back to the central scute, assuming the turtle has all of its scutes, should be named scute “X”. Now, we have a list of 3 letter codes that we can use to name each turtle. So, lets say we decided to name the turtle “ABC”. We would take a file and shave a shallow triangular notch in the center of scute “A”, scute “B”, and scute “C”. That way, if we catch the turtle again, we can see that the notches are in the middle of those scutes and know that this is turtle “ABC” that we, say, caught last summer. Turtle shells are much like our nails so filing the notch doesn’t hurt them at all and is completely noninvasive to the lifestyle of the turtle.

Activity!: I’m going to post a picture of a turtle shell at the bottom of this post and I want you to tell me the name of the turtle based on our naming system! If you get it right, you get… well, you get the satisfaction of having such a valuable skill that you can teach all of your friends about!

The 5 physical differences in male and female box turtles!:
a)The eyes: Females will have darker colored eyes compared to the male. Females can have dark brown to pale orange or dark red eyes while males will generally have bright orange, light brown, or yellow eyes.
b)The head and legs: Box turtles have brown scaly skin with yellow or orange accents. The same goes for the shell. Males have much brighter, more pronounced yellow accents on their bodies and shells than females who will be a duller, pale yellow or orange. The way I like to think of it is that male birds generally have brighter colors than female birds. Same goes for turtles.
c)The shell: Since females have to store eggs under that domed carapace, they tend to have a higher shell than male turtles. This can be hard to tell unless you have a male and a female to compare to one another.
d)The plastron: The plastron is the bottom plate on the tummy of the turtle. Males will have a concave section in their plastron that will assist them in staying on the female during, well, you know.
e)The tail: Females have small, short tails while males have longer, wider tails.

Matching just one of these characteristics isn’t enough to reliably determine the turtle’s gender. For instance, females can also sometimes have a slightly concave plastron or show distinctly bright eye color but still be a female. The only way to be certain is blood testing but judging by the reptile’s physical characteristics is much less stressful for the animal and much faster for us.

If you ever find a box turtle, it is okay to observe them for about a day but you should release the turtle right back where you found it to keep it happy and healthy in its natural environment!

Thanks for checking out my post. It’s hot outside so be careful not to overheat! Don’t forget to add a comment with the name of the turtle in the picture below according to our naming system. Take care