Terrapene carolina

The common box turtle is a species of box turtle with five existing subspecies. It is found throughout the Eastern United States and Mexico. The box turtle has a distinctive hinged lower shell that allows it to completely enclose itself, like a box. Its upper jaw is hooked. The turtle is primarily terrestrial and eats a wide variety of plants and animals. The females lay their eggs in the summer. Turtles in the northern part of their range hibernate over the winter.

Terrapene carolina

“Jonathan Zander ( Digon3 )" · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
common box turtlePBDB
Sits inside
TerrapenePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Terrapene
Life habit
ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Terrapene
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Terrapene

Time the record covers

At least 9.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 9.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 12.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 1 of 35 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 35 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 32 of 35 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 35 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–10.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10.0–9.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.5–9.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.8–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.0–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.2–1.7 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.7–1.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–867 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences867 ka–433 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences433 ka–0 Mya — about 24 occurrences9.4 Mya11.7 ka13 Mya0 Mya

35 occurrences of Terrapene carolina on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

35 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

8 formations

Kingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WWicomico — 29.42°N, 82.22°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WTamiami — 27.78°N, 82.68°WFort Thompson — 27.80°N, 82.80°WSilver Bluff — 32.56°N, 80.29°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°W

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The named rock units Terrapene carolina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Terrapene carolina and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Terrapene carolina and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

945 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Terrapene carolina, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

30 references

Each of the 35 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 18 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Terrapene carolina

Credit
“Jonathan Zander ( Digon3 )"
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Terrapene carolina was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itTerrapene through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)