Wood Turtle

The wood turtle (Glyptemys insculpta) is native to northeastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to Minnesota and south into Virginia, and divides its time between shallow, sandy-bottomed streams and nearby woodland and fields. Its carapace has a rough, sculpted texture with a raised, pyramid-like pattern on each scute, and the skin on its neck, chin, and legs is often orange to red. It is omnivorous, eating insects, slugs, fungi, and carrion as well as mosses and grasses. Roughly three in ten of the species survive in Canada, and habitat destruction, road mortality, and illegal collection have driven population declines across its range, leading the IUCN to assess it as Endangered.