Common Box Turtle

The common box turtle is a species of box turtle with five recognized subspecies, found throughout the eastern United States and Mexico. It has a distinctive hinged lower shell that lets it fully enclose itself like a box, and a hooked upper jaw; it is primarily terrestrial, eating a wide variety of plants and animals, and turtles in the northern part of its range hibernate through winter. Numbers are declining because of habitat loss, roadkill and capture for the pet trade, and the IUCN Red List classifies the species as vulnerable; North Carolina and Tennessee have each named a subspecies of the common box turtle their official state reptile.