Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina)

Eastern Box Turtle courtesy of NC Wildlife Resources Commission

Eastern box turtles are identified by their patterned, dome-shaped shells.  Males have red or orange eyes, while females have brown or yellow eyes.  These ancient creatures were roaming the land before dinosaurs appeared.  Living up to 100 years, box turtles reach maturity between seven and 10 years of age.  Adult females lay two to seven eggs in the spring that hatch in late summer or fall.  Box turtles love to eat slugs and other garden pests.  Roads, fragmented habitat, lawn mowers, and collecting for the pet trade are some of the biggest threats to this species.


To learn more about ID, range, breeding, and voice, visit Virginia Herpetological Society

What Eastern Box Turtles Need How Can We Help
Food and Water: Eastern box turtles are omnivores: Fruits, such as blackberries, blueberries, grapes, and mayapples, are on the menu, as are insects, centipedes and other arthropods, snails and slugs, worms, vegetables, roots, and mushrooms.
  • Plant natives to provide fruits, vegetable matter, and arthropods as food for turtles. Include high or low bush blueberry, purple flowering raspberry and wild strawberry.
  • Logs and other dead wood provide a foundation for mushrooms.
  • Designate a few plants (for example, a tomato) in your vegetable garden for the turtles. A small wire fence will keep turtles from reaching the other plants.
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    Shelter: Turtles are attracted to shrubby habitats with logs and woody debris. During hot, dry conditions, they conceal thenselves in pools of water, mud, or damp ground. They overwinter by burrowing into the soil beneath leaf piles and grass clumps, in a stump hole, or in stream bottoms.
  • The logs and woody debris that provide food will double as shelter.
  • Build a brush shelter.
  • Create a small wetland by putting a shallow pond with aquatic plants like pickerelweek and arrow arum. Add land plants along the edge such as cardinal flower, blue vervain.
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    Nesting: Females often lay their eggs in south-facing well-drained sunny soil. They dig nests several inches below the soil. Young turtles need low substrate, like leaf litter, ferns, and logs to hide in and under.
  • Plant a meadow patch. Consider Indian grass, little blue stem, goldenrod, asters, milkweeds, and Joe Pyeweed.
  • Let leaf litter build up under shrubs and trees.
  • Plant ferns like cinnamon, Christmas, and royal ferns.
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    Other Threats:Turtles can roam up to a mile in a year. Roads present a deadly hazard for these slow-moving creatures. Invasive exotic plants smother their food plants. Raccoons, foxes, and crows, though native, are major predators for young turtles. Lawn mowers kill and injure turtles.
  • Protect connected natural areas that provide a corridor enabling turtles and other wildlife to travel safely.
  • Oppose roads that fragment parks and natural areas.
  • Remove exotic invasive plants.
  • Avoid attracting raccoons and crows by keeping trash contained and pet food inside.
  • Reduce the area of mowed lawn, by installing a meadow, wetland, or brush shelter. Mow less ground, less often to further protect box turtles.
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