northeast-flora-and-fauna

I'm not the fastest walker in the world these days, but I met a hiker on a trail that's even slower than me; it's a Common Box Turtle . I suspect that this is a female since the eyes of most males are red.  When I see most (suspected) female turtles on land, I normally think they're looking for a place to lay eggs before retreating back to the water. But our box turtles are different, spending most of their time on land [1]. Still, May to July is when the females lay eggs. Box turtles can live a long time; they've been known to live over 130 years. I don't remember this individual being especially large though, so I doubt she's especially old. June 23, 2023 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 301112364, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] My understanding is that box turtles can swim if they have to, but they prefer not to.

Here's a Common Box Turtle plodding through the springtime vegetation. I could probably also label it an Eastern Box Turtle , which is the subspecies of the Common Box Turtle most likely to be found in New Jersey. (The main exception to this would presumably be any other subspecies brought to NJ as a pet that either escaped or got released.) Remember yesterday's post about the Mayapple that had either an unopened flower bud or an unripened fruit? It turns out that Common Box Turtles are 1 of the few animals known to eat Mayapple fruits. Unfortunately although I saw the Mayapple and the turtle approximately the same time of the day, they weren't close enough for me to gauge whether the turtle had any interest in eating the bud/fruit. Had the turtle eaten it, we could say with confidence that it was a fruit. I'm told that Common Box Turtles are an excellent way for Mayapples to spread. The turtles are likely to poop out the seeds a fair distance from where they ate them...