This poor box turtle didn’t survive the haymaking:
Box turtles are sometimes killed by the tractors and other heavy equipment. My guess is the local turkey vulture clan cleaned out the shell.
I wish I had poked around with a bit more, because I could have clearly shown how turtle shells are actually just modified ribs.
But don’t worry too much. I cam across this specimen, who quite obviously survived it all.
Box turtles could be quite threatened in the very near future.
They can no longer be exported for the pet trade, and in the neighboring state of Ohio, they are listed as a “species of concern.”
We would call that type of animal a tortoise – if we even had them, which we don’t of course. Back in the 1940’s Greek tortoises were imported to Britain for the pet trade. I recall my parents had one which was let out into the garden during summer but fastened by a long piece of string through a hole drilled through the shell and fastened to a pear tree, I recall. Luckily this pet trade was made illegal as the Greek tortoises were becoming endangered. Nowadays a few specialists breed tortoises in this country and of course they are very expensive to buy.
This is not a tortoise.
It’s actually out of the aquatic turtle lineage (members of the family Emydidae) but they do live on land.
At one time, this species was common in the European pet market, and many Europeans tried to keep them like tortoises, especially those from desert climates.
Unfortunately, this particular species is meant for cool temperate climates with high humidity, and if you try to keep one in a low humidity, high temperature, they wind up dying agonizing deaths.
I have a friend who rescued a box turtle years ago; it had chunk broken off its shell & a missing foot. She nursed it back ti health & it lives in her yard except during the winter. It is (slowly) responsive to her voice, & will come out to accept a piece of lettuce from her hand. She puts him in a cardboard shoebox with some orchid moss, in a cool place at the back of a closet, so that he can hibernate for the winter. She’s had him about 30 years.
Recently my dog was going nuts barking at the back door when I walked back there to see what he was having a fit about I saw a large eastern box turtle looking in at us. He was a pretty big guy the shell was about 10 inches long, I carefully moved him into a box, and carried him back down the street to the large drainage pond I assume he came from. I realise he was probably off looking for a mate, the turtles are everywhere right now, but he certainly wasn’t going to find one in my yard! It was still kinda neat to see.
My old Sammie used to love to carry them around in his mouth. I guess he thought they were self-mobile balls of some kind. Fortunately, they were none the worse for wear afterwards.
We were about to train dogs at a local pond one day, when we encountered a couple of snapping turtles. They appear to be the Michigan version of an alligator, only slightly smaller. We left the pond to the snappers, thank you!
That reminded me of this: