Endangered
Wood turtle
Glyptemys insculpta
Wood turtle is a turtle in the family Emydidae — Glyptemys insculpta, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
It has a rough carapace that is a tan, grayish brown or brown in color, with a central ridge (called a keel) made up of a pyramidal pattern of ridges and grooves. The larger scutes display a pattern of black or yellow lines. The wood turtle's plastron (ventral shell) is yellowish in color and has dark patches.
The wood turtle usually grows to between 14 and 20 centimeters (5.5 and 7.9 in) in straight carapace length, but may reach a maximum of 23.4 centimeters (9.2 in).
Range and habitat
The wood turtle is found in most New England states, Nova Scotia, west to Michigan, northern Indiana and Minnesota, and south to Virginia. Spring to summer is spent in open areas among them forests, fields, bogs, wet meadows, and beaver ponds. In the northern portion of its range (Quebec and other areas of Canada), populations are fairly dilute, containing an average of 0.44 individuals per 1 hectare (2.5 acres), while in the south, over the same area, the densities varied largely from 6 to 90 turtles.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
It produces offspring by laying eggs, and does not provide parental care outside of nest-building. Thus, the location and quality of nesting sites determine the offspring survival and fitness. So females invest significant time and energy into nest site selection and construction.
Females select nest sites based on soil temperature (preferring warmer temperature nest sites), but not soil composition. Average nest size is four inches wide and three inches deep.
In crisis
Many other animals that live in its habitat pose a threat to it. Raccoons are over-abundant in many places and are a direct threat to all life stages of this species. Wood turtle populations are under high conservation concerns due to human interference of natural habitats.
For proper protection of the wood turtle, in-depth land surveys of its habitat to establish population numbers are needed. Next, leaving nests undisturbed, especially common nesting sites and populations, is the best solution to enable the wood turtle's survival.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Wood turtle is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Wood turtle, Wikidata item Q844687. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
