Snakes Emerging From Brumation
In the fall, when temperatures dip down and daylight hours decrease, snakes seek sheltered spots (hibernacula) where they can avoid freezing temperatures, as their body assumes the same temperature as their environment (ectothermic or cold-blooded). If it’s freezing out and snakes are exposed, they will freeze. Burrows deep below the frost line, rotting logs and cellars are some of the places where they head to escape very cold temperatures.
Snakes enter into a state referred to as brumation by herpetologists. It’s very similar to hibernation, in that their metabolism and body temperature are lowered, but unlike hibernators, they do not go into a deep sleep that relies on fat storage. Brumation allows snakes to conserve energy and survive winter without substantial fat reserves.
Brumation comes to an end once temperatures start warming up in March and April. Snakes that have emerged from brumation are typically very sluggish and easy to handle. Although it’s tempting to pick up these barely-moving snakes, it’s best to keep contact with them at a minimum, as the warmth of human hands will quickly make the snake active and perhaps delay its return to its hibernaculum, should the weather suddenly turn cold. (Photo: Lily Piper Brown who couldn’t resist holding a Common Gartersnake fresh out of brumation for just a few seconds. Thanks to Suzi Wizowaty for discovering the snake.)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
How Do Snakes Swallow Prey That Are Larger Than Their Mouths?
Unlike most predators, snakes swallow their prey whole. Often the prey is larger than their mouth; in order to swallow the prey, the snake has unique adaptations that allow it to increase its jaw width and gape.
Contrary to popular myth, snakes do not dislocate their jaws in order to consume large prey. Two mandibles form the lower jaw and are the only moveable bones of the skull. At the front, they are attached to each other with a stretchy ligament. Consequently, the bottom mandibles can spread apart laterally, increasing the width of the mouth. They are also loosely connected at the back to the skull, allowing a snake to also increase the gape of its mouth.
After the prey is captured, the snake’s mandibles move independently of each other, slowly inching the prey into the snake’s throat. Simultaneously, the snake’s head “walks” forward in a side-to-side motion over the prey’s body, so as the prey is levered backward the head moves forward. Backward-pointing teeth help ensure the prey does not escape if it is still alive. (Photo: Common Gartersnake swallowing frog; photo by Kit Emery)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Common Gartersnakes Emerging From Hibernation
Snakes, being cold-blooded, or ectotherms, must find a spot to spend the winter where their bodies will not freeze. Not being able to dig their own dens, or hibernacula, snakes often rely on natural cavities and the burrows of other animals such as woodchucks and chipmunks that are below the frost line. During winter, typically between October and March, a hundred or more individuals of different species can gather in the same den, slowing down their metabolism and tightly coiling their bodies together to stay warm enough to survive.
Once the earth starts to warm up, snakes emerge. Common Gartersnakes remain near their winter dens for several days. Males appear first in the spring, sometimes in groups as large as several hundred snakes. Females tend to emerge singly and over a longer period of time. Gartersnake courtship soon follows and can take the form of a writhing mass of bodies, called a mating ball, where one female is surrounded by and has her pick of a hundred or more lustful males.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Why Do Snakes Bask?
Snakes, like other reptiles, are cold-blooded – they are unable to internally regulate their body temperature. On cool days If their body temperature is low, they are sluggish. They don’t move quickly, don’t hunt effectively and if they have food in their stomachs, digestion comes to nearly a standstill.
They avoid this situation by basking when cool weather sets in. They lay in the sunshine and/or on rocks or substrate that is heated by the sun, and warm up. When they get to an optimal temperature, they can be active, hunt and digest the food they eat. During these shorter, cooler fall days, before snakes enter hibernation, a great deal of time is spent basking.
There is an advantage to using sunlight to control body temperature. Warm-blooded animals must eat a large amount of food fairly continuously because it is the digestion of the food that regulates their body temperature and produces heat, which they must maintain in order to survive. Cold-blooded animals don’t have this restriction since their body temperature is controlled externally. This is why a snake can go for a relatively long period of time (months, depending on species) without eating after it has consumed food. (Photo: Common Gartersnake peering out from under leaves after its basking was disturbed)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtle Eggs Hatching
For the past three months, Snapping Turtle eggs have been buried roughly five to ten inches deep in sandy soil (depth depends on the size of the female laying them), absorbing heat from the sun-warmed soil. Come September, the relatively few Snapping Turtle eggs that have avoided predation are hatching. The sex of the baby turtles correlates to the temperature of the clutch. Temperatures of 73-80 °F will produce males, slightly above and below will produce both sexes, and more extreme temperatures will produce females. The miniature snappers crawl their way up through the earth and head for the nearest pond, probably the most perilous journey of their lives.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Wood Turtles Laying Eggs
This Wood Turtle is climbing up a sandy hill in order to find a high elevation site in which to lay her eggs, one where the soil temperature is just right and where flooding is not likely to occur.
Twice a year, in the spring and fall, Wood Turtles engage in a mating ritual that involves both turtles “dancing” with each other prior to copulating in the water. Once mating has occurred, the female seeks out a suitable habitat in which to lay her 3-20 eggs, usually near a stream. Once the nest cavity has been dug, the eggs laid, and the cavity filled with dirt and/or leaves, the female departs, never to provide care for her young. The eggs hatch and the hatchlings emerge from the nest sometime between August and October. Unlike most turtles, the sex of the hatchlings is determined genetically and not by the temperature of the eggs.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Water Snakes Mating
True to its name, the Northern Water Snake is seldom found far from water. These three- to four-foot snakes are excellent swimmers, both on the surface and submerged, and commonly forage along the water’s edge for fish, frogs and salamanders. This particular Water Snake’s tongue was sensing its surroundings almost constantly as it patrolled the shore of a fresh water lake. When not swimming, Water Snakes can often be found basking on river banks, beaver dams and lodges, and on branches overhanging streams and ponds.
Northern Water Snakes mate in May and June. Females give birth to 12-60 live young in August and September.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtle Seeking Sandy Soil In Which To Lay Eggs
Monday’s Mystery Photo leaves no doubt that Naturally Curious readers are among the most informed nature interpreters out there. There were many correct answers, but congratulations go to Susan Cloutier, who was the first to identify the tracks and diagnostic wavy line left by the tail of a female Snapping Turtle as she traveled overland seeking sandy soil in which to lay her eggs. The turtle eventually found a suitable spot, dug several holes and chose one in which to deposit her roughly 30 eggs, covered them with soil and immediately headed back to her pond, leaving her young to fend for themselves if and when they survive to hatch in the fall.
Unfortunately, there is little guarantee that the eggs will survive. Skunks (the main predators), raccoons, foxes and mink have all been known to dig turtle eggs up within the first 24 hours of their being laid and eat them, leaving tell-tale scattered shells exposed on the ground. Fortunately, Snapping Turtles live at least 47 years, giving them multiple chances to have at least one successful nesting season. (Thanks to Chiho Kaneko and Jeffrey Hamelman for photo op.)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Painted Turtles Laying Eggs
The courtship of Painted Turtles begins shortly after they emerge from hibernation in April and May. It is quite an elaborate process, with the male swimming in front of the female and rapidly vibrating his long toenails along her head. Mating follows and a month or two later females look for terrestrial nesting sites, often late on a rainy afternoon.
Frequently the female will dig several “false” nests before depositing her half a dozen or so eggs in a nest. After carefully covering her eggs with soil and leaving the ground looking relatively undisturbed, she returns to her pond, providing no care for her offspring.
Painted Turtle eggs hatch in the fall. In the Northeast some young Painted Turtles emerge above ground shortly after hatching, while others remain in the nest and don’t dig their way out until the following spring. (Turtles from the same nest can emerge at different times.) Those turtles emerging in the fall usually have an egg tooth and a fresh yolk sac scar; those that overwinter and emerge in the spring lack both of these. (Thanks to Jody Crosby for photo op.)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Aquatic Turtles Shedding Scutes
The spine and expanded ribs of a turtle are fused through ossification to plates beneath the skin to form a bony shell. Both upper and lower sections of the shell have an outer layer of plates called “scutes” made primarily of keratin (as are hair, feathers, hooves, claws, horns and nails). Scutes protect the shell from scrapes and bruises.
In most land turtles and tortoises, scutes remain on the shell for life, which causes the shell to thicken and protects it. Growth of the scutes occurs through the addition of keratin layers to the base of each scute.
For most water species, as the turtle grows, the epithelium, or thin layer of tissue between the scutes and the bony plates, produces a new scute beneath the old one that is a larger diameter than the one layered on top of it, allowing the shell to expand.as the turtle and its shell grow. The old scutes shed or peel away to make way for the newer, larger scutes (see top of shell, or plastron, of Northern Map Turtle on right in photo). Basking in the sun helps turtles shed scutes by drying them and leaving them ready to fall off. Usually this happens without any assistance, though there are some species of turtles which do pull loose scutes off each other’s shells.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snakes Basking & Brumating
Being ectothermic (unable to regulate their own body temperature) snakes cannot afford to spend the winter in a spot that freezes. After basking and feeding heavily in the late fall, they seek out sheltered caves, hollow logs, and burrows where they enter a state called brumation. Brumation is to reptiles what hibernation is to mammals – an extreme slowing down of one’s metabolism.
While similar, these two states have their differences. Hibernating mammals slow their respiration down, but they still require a fair amount of oxygen present to survive. Snakes can handle far lower oxygen demands and fluctuations than mammals. Also, hibernating mammals sleep the entire time during their dormancy, whereas snakes have periods of activity during brumation. If the weather is mild, they will take advantage of the opportunity to venture out and bask. They also need to drink during this period in order to avoid dehydration. (Photo: DeKay’s Brownsnake (Storeria dekayi) basking)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtle Eggs Hatching
Every fall, roughly three months after they’re laid, snapping turtle eggs hatch. Like many other turtle species, the hatchlings’ gender is determined by the temperature at which the eggs were incubated during the summer. Eggs at the top of the nest are often significantly warmer than those at the bottom, resulting in all females from the top eggs, and all males from the bottom eggs. In some locations, the hatchlings emerge from the nest in hours or days, and in others, primarily in locations warmer than northern New England, they remain in the nest through the winter.
When they emerge above ground, the hatchlings, without any adult guidance, make their way to the nearest body of water, which can be up to a quarter of a mile away, and once there, seek shallow water. Eggs and snapping turtle hatchlings are extremely vulnerable to predation. Predators include, among others, larger turtles, great blue herons, crows, raccoons, skunks, foxes, bullfrogs, water snakes, and large predatory fish, such as largemouth bass. Older and larger snapping turtles have a much easier time fending for themselves. (Photo: newborn snapper)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button. (NB: The “Donate” button on the Naturally Curious blog is currently not working. If you would like to donate to the sustainability of this blog, you may send a check made out to Mary Holland to me at 505 Wake Robin Drive, Shelburne, VT 05482.)
Eastern Garter Snakes Giving Birth
Seventy percent of the world’s snakes lay eggs and only about thirty percent give birth to live young. Eastern Garter Snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) are among the latter, giving birth in August to between two and thirty-one offspring (averaging 23). Carrying and incubating developing embryos within their body is more common for northern snakes and there is good reason for this. Whereas eggs are subject to whatever temperature fluctuations occur where they were laid, a snake that carries her young to term within her is able to move to warm areas that are ideal incubation temperatures. This causes less stress for the developing embryos and also results in a greater number of viable young.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtles’ Extensive Reach
When you see a Snapping Turtle on land, its head is often only a few inches out of its shell, but don’t be fooled! The length of its neck can be up to two-thirds the length of its shell and if threatened it can quickly extend its neck all the way out. (Keeping yourself out of reach is wise. However, come June, when female Snapping Turtles often are found crossing roads when they leave their ponds to lay eggs, rescuing them from oncoming cars usually calls for close proximity to them. To hold and transport them (to the side of the road they were headed), just grab the back end of the shell, where their head can’t quite reach your hands.)
Their long neck allows Snapping Turtles to capture prey such as fish, frogs and crayfish from a distance. When in shallow water, they can lie on the muddy bottom of the pond with only their heads occasionally exposed in order to take an occasional breath. If you look closely at a Snapping Turtle’s head (see photo), you will see that their nostrils are positioned on the very tip of their snout, effectively functioning as snorkels.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Common Gartersnakes Mating
During these first days of April, Common Gartersnakes emerge from their hibernacula and often bask in the sun near the den where they spent the winter. (At this time they are more approachable than later in the season, should you desire a close look at one.) Males usually appear first; when the females appear, the males follow them in hot pursuit.
Common Gartersnakes are known for their impressive courtship ritual. Prior to copulation, as many as a hundred males will often writhe around a single female, forming a mass which is referred to as a “mating ball.” The male closest to the female rubs his chin on the head, back and sides of the female while aligning himself with her and eventually mating takes place. When it does, the other males that were in the mating ball leave and seek out other females. Female gartersnakes mate once; male may mate with several females. (Photo by Sally Fellows)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtles Laying Eggs – Sex Of Turtles Determined By Temperature
It’s that time of year again, when female Snapping Turtles are leaving ponds, digging holes in sandy soil and depositing up to 80 eggs (20-30 is typical) before covering them up and returning to their ponds. While the sex of most snakes and lizards is determined by sex chromosomes at the time of fertilization, the sex of most turtles is determined by the environment after fertilization. In these reptiles, the temperature of the eggs during a certain period of development is the deciding factor in determining sex, and small changes in temperature can cause dramatic changes in the sex ratio.
Often, eggs incubated at low temperatures (72°F – 80°F) produce one sex, whereas eggs incubated at higher temperatures (86°F and above) produce the other. There is only a small range of temperatures that permits both males and females to hatch from the same brood of eggs. The eggs of the Snapping Turtle become female at either cool (72°F or lower) or hot (82°F or above) temperatures. Between these extremes, males predominate. (Developmental Biology by S. Gilbert)
If the cool temperatures we’ve experienced thus far this spring continue, there could be a lot of female Snapping Turtles climbing up out of the earth come September. (Thanks to Clyde Jenne and Jeffrey Hamelman for photo opportunity)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Northern Water Snakes Courting & Mating
Northern Water Snakes (Nerodia sipedon) are non-poisonous snakes which, as their name implies, tend to be found in the Northeast, in and around water. Females (bottom snake in photo) are heavier and longer than males (as long as five feet) and grow much faster. Since the end of May, Northern Water Snakes have been engaging in courtship rituals and mating. The male snake (top snake in photo) begins by crawling alongside a female while he rubs his body along hers. It is not unusual for more than one male to court her at the same time, with one eventually achieving copulation by twisting and coiling his tail around her body and tail as he attempts to get their cloacae aligned.
Northern Water Snakes are ovoviviparous – the female’s eggs incubate inside her body. The larger the female, the greater the number of live young she’s likely to produce in late August or September. Northern Water Snakes have between 12 and 60 young — judging from the size of the pictured female she’ll have a large litter. (Photo by Jeff Mazur)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Painted Turtles Basking
Water temperature of fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit is the magic number for Painted Turtles in the fall. Below it, their metabolism slows to a near standstill – their heartbeat slows to only one beat every few minutes and they do not breathe through their lungs (if conditions allow, they may absorb oxygen dissolved in the water through specialized skin cells near the tail). Their body temperature averages 43°F. when hibernating in the mud at the bottom of ponds. Occasionally a Painted Turtle is seen swimming under the ice, but for the most part, hibernation rules from October to April in northern New England.
When the water reaches 59°F.- 64°F. in the spring, Painted Turtles become active again. In addition to foraging, they immediately start basking in the sun. Being cold-blooded, or ectothermic, they need this external source of heat to warm their body, but the UV light also regulates their metabolism and breeding as well as helps produce Vitamin D3, which is essential for the health of their bones as well as their internal organs.
Basking can also help relieve aquatic turtles of ectoparasites. Leeches are a blood-sucking ectoparasite that can cause anemia in reptiles. Drying out in the sun causes the leeches to shrivel up and die. Algae on basking aquatic turtles can also dry out and fall off, allowing the shells to retain their aerodynamic nature.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtles Emerging From Hibernation
Congratulations to Elizabeth Hall, the first reader to correctly identify the trail blazer in the previous NC post!
As you can see from the dirt piled on this Snapping Turtle’s head, it has just emerged from hibernation. After extracting themselves from their muddy hibernacula, Snapping Turtles have two missions: to raise their body temperature and to secure food. According to Jim Andrews, Director of the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas (https://www.vtherpatlas.org/ ), the first movement of the year for these turtles is often to seek shallow water where they can bask in the sun and heat their internal organs. They also are on the move in order to get from their overwintering site (shallows of ponds, marshes, and lakeshores, in a spring or a stream) back to a feeding area. It won’t be long before they will be searching for mates.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Common Gartersnakes Brumating
Somewhere between two and four feet (depending on where you live in New England) beneath our feet there is a “frost line” below which the ground water in soil doesn’t freeze. Snakes, being reptiles, are ectotherms, and their bodies assume the temperature of the air around them. In order to avoid being frozen to death in the winter, they retreat below the frost line, where they enter a state called brumation – the cold-blooded term for a state of torpor and inactivity that is not true hibernation, but in which a dramatic slowing down of bodily functions occurs. Crevices in south-facing rocky ledges and abandoned woodchuck, fox and skunk dens (and human cellars) often serve as hibernacula, or winter shelters. Common Gartersnakes are known to gather in large numbers (one Canadian den served as a hibernaculum for 8,000 gartersnakes), in order to concentrate the small amount of heat their bodies produce in the winter.
As the air temperature lowers in the fall, a snake’s body temperature falls and its metabolism decreases dramatically. Gartersnakes actively prepare for this by not eating for several weeks prior to hibernating. This allows all of the food they previously consumed to be completely broken down and absorbed into their system. To enhance this process, gartersnakes bask in the sun both before and during their early days of sheltering in hibernacula, warming themselves so as to increase the rate of their metabolism just prior to hibernating.
Should a snake happen to eat a large grasshopper, earthworm or small frog just prior to entering brumation, the snake may become extremely lethargic due to the slowing down of its metabolism, and the contents of its stomach may not be digested as quickly. The longer it takes to process food in its stomach, the greater the chances that this dead material will start to decay, which could result in serious illness to the snake.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to http://www.naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Snapping Turtles Entering Hibernation
Most Snapping Turtles have entered hibernation by late October. To hibernate, they burrow into the debris or mud bottom of ponds or lakes, settle beneath logs, or retreat into muskrat burrows or lodges. Once a pond is frozen over, how do they breathe with ice preventing them from coming up for air?
Because turtles are ectotherms, or cold-blooded, their body temperature is the same as their surroundings. The water at the bottom of a pond is usually only a few degrees above freezing. Fortunately, a cold turtle in cold water/mud has a slow metabolism. The colder it gets, the slower its metabolism, which means there is less and less of a demand for energy and oxygen as temperatures fall – but there is still some.
When hibernating, Snapping Turtles rely on stored energy. They acquire oxygen from pond water moving across the surface of their body, which is highly vascularized. Blood vessels are particularly concentrated near the turtle’s tail, allowing the Snapper to obtain the necessary amount of oxygen to stay alive without using its lungs.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Young Milk Snakes Soon To Hibernate
The eggs that Milk Snakes laid last June or July hatched recently and the six-inch young snakes as well as the adults that produced them will only be evident (and then, mostly at night) for the next few weeks. Hibernation is around the corner, and these snakes often seek out the cellars of old houses with stone foundations in which to spend the winter. Should you come upon a Milk Snake, please spare its life. They are not poisonous, and you couldn’t ask for a more efficient mouse catcher (Mice accounted for 74 percent of a study of Milk Snakes’ stomach contents.).
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Young Common Gartersnakes Appearing
Seventy percent of the world’s snakes lay eggs (oviparous). The rest give birth to live young (viviparous). Oviparous snakes tend to live in warmer climates, where the substrate they lay their eggs in is warm enough to incubate the eggs. (Most egg-laying snakes deposit their eggs and then depart, relying on the substrate to incubate the eggs.) Viviparous snakes tend to live in cooler regions, where the ground is too cold to provide incubation.
There is a distinction between egg-laying snakes. The majority of snakes that lay eggs do so outside their body, in a protected area such as a rotting log. These snakes are known as oviparous. There are also egg-laying snakes that retain their eggs inside their bodies until they’re ready to hatch. These snakes are called ovoviviparous. Ovoviviparous snakes, such as the Common Gartersnake, appear to give birth to live young, but they actually don’t. Unlike viviparous species, there is no placental connection, or transfer of fluids, between mothers and babies, because the developing young snakes feed on the substances contained in their individual eggs. The snakes emerge from the mother when they hatch from their eggs, giving them the appearance of “live” births. The gestation period for oviparous snakes is generally longer than those of ovoviviparous snakes and vary from a few weeks to a few months in length. (Photo: very young Common Gartersnake, Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis, consuming an earthworm)
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Painted Turtles Basking
When a Painted Turtle crawls out of the roughly 39° F. degree mud at the bottom of a pond in early spring, it immediately heads to the nearest log or rock to bask and raise its body temperature. Turtles are ectothermic (cold-blooded) and must rely on external sources for the regulation of their body temperature. Thermoregulation is achieved both physically and behaviorally. A dark carapace (top shell) absorbs the sun’s heat, warming up the turtle’s internal temperature and the turtle regulates its temperature by shuffling in and out of the sun. It is imperative for the core body temperature of male Painted Turtles to reach 63° F., for only then can they start to produce sperm.
Naturally Curious is supported by donations. If you choose to contribute, you may go to https://naturallycuriouswithmaryholland.wordpress.com and click on the yellow “donate” button.
Naturally Curious with Mary Holland 
What Other Naturally Curious People Are Saying