Painted Turtles

Painted turtles are reptiles that are found throughout North America. This turtle is a water turtle and lives in marshes, lakes, ponds and in slow moving rivers. These are small animals and don't usually grow beyond ten inches in length. It has a hard shell to help protect it from enemies or predators. The name “painted turtle” comes from the underside of this turtle's shell, which gives the look of being painted. The underside is mostly yellow (or solid yellow) and often has a pattern in the center, though sometimes they have very complicated yellow and red. The painted turtle also has yellow and red lines on its limbs and head. Besides this, their skin ranges from olive green to black.

Mature female turtles will lay between four and fifteen eggs in each “clutch” or nest. Females will make as many as five nests each mating season. After the eggs are laid they have a seventy two to eighty day incubation period. Immediately upon hatching the painted turtles are independent. The male painted turtle takes between three and five years to mature and the female painted turtle takes between six and ten years to mature. The mating season usually starts after the turtles have woken up from hibernation (this takes place when water temperatures are low).

The most active periods for painted turtles takes place between March and October. During the winter, the turtles burrow down deeply into the mud on stream and pond floors, and hibernate. The turtles can burrow down as far as three feet and can survive without oxygen for five months, which is longer than any other vertebrate that breathes air. After hibernation, the turtles wait until the water is about sixty degrees Fahrenheit (fifteen and a half Celsius) before beginning to eat. While most of the painted turtle's life is spent in water, it does sometimes crawl up onto a shore or onto rocks or logs that are floating in the water. They sun themselves because they do not have control over their body temperatures and need the heat from the sun to keep their body temperature constant.

When it comes time to feed the painted turtle usually forages for food along the bottom of water bodies and in the algae and water plants that form in clumps. Sometimes the turtle will swim along the surface of the water with its mouth open, eating whatever happens to enter its mouth (a process called neustrophagia). These turtles do not chew their food. They slice the food into pieces with their beaks and then swallow the pieces whole.

Painted turtles are very vulnerable to predation throughout all of their life stages. There are a great many animals that feed on the painted turtle including foxes, badgers, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, garter snakes, mink, eagles, hawks and even alligators. When a painted turtle feels threatened it has been known to bite, kick, scratch and even urinate of its predator. Painted turtles that manage to survive environmental hazards, the pet trade and predators can live as long as thirty years.