Reptiles
Bog Turtle
Glyptemys muhlenbergii · also called Muhlenberg's turtle
The bog turtle is small enough to sit in your palm, with a bright orange patch on each side of its neck. It is the smallest turtle in North America, it lives only in a specific kind of spring-fed wet meadow, and it is one of the most endangered turtles on the continent.
Overview
Glyptemys muhlenbergii has a shell only 8 to 11 cm long and weighs a little over 100 grams, the smallest turtle in North America. It lives only in shallow, sunny, groundwater-fed bogs and wet meadows with soft mud and no tree canopy, in two separate regions of the eastern US. It is an omnivore, eating insects, slugs, small frogs, and berries.
A narrow life
It hibernates buried in the mud, sometimes several turtles together, does not breed until about 8 years old, lays just 2 to 5 eggs a year, and can live 30 to 60 years — so a lost population does not come back.
Status
Critically Endangered, with a wild population in the low thousands scattered across several hundred tiny wetland sites. It is falling from wetland drainage, the shading-in of open bogs, illegal collection for the pet trade, road deaths, and rising nest predation. The northern population is federally Threatened.
Bog Turtle: common questions
How small is a bog turtle?
Very small. A fully grown adult has a shell about the length of a playing card, roughly 8 to 11 centimetres, and weighs a little over 100 grams, so an entire bog turtle fits comfortably in a cupped hand and a hatchling is about the size of a quarter. It is the smallest turtle in North America and among the smallest turtle species anywhere. That small size, combined with its secretive habits and its buried-in-mud lifestyle, means that even at a site where bog turtles are present, a person can search for hours and see nothing.
Why is the bog turtle so endangered?
Its habitat is both rare and disappearing, and the turtle cannot move to find more. Bog turtles need shallow, sunny, spring-fed wetlands with soft mud and low vegetation, a habitat type that was never common and that is easily destroyed by draining or filling for agriculture and development, by damming that makes the water too deep, and by the natural or fire-suppressed growth of shrubs and trees that shade the site out. On top of habitat loss, the turtle has been heavily poached for the international pet trade, where its small size and bright markings make it valuable, and single collectors have wiped out entire local populations. It also suffers rising nest and hatchling predation from raccoons, skunks, and foxes boosted by human food.
Can you keep a bog turtle as a pet?
No. It is illegal to take a bog turtle from the wild anywhere in its range, and both the northern and southern populations are protected under United States law, with the southern population specifically shielded because it looks like the listed northern one and could be laundered through the trade. Wild bog turtle populations are declining largely because animals are removed from them, so every turtle matters. Legitimate captive-breeding and head-starting programmes exist within recovery efforts, but there is no legal path to a bog turtle as a private pet, and any offered for sale has almost certainly been taken illegally from a wild population.
How is the bog turtle related to the wood turtle?
They are close relatives, the only two members of the genus Glyptemys, and both have low, sculpted shells and are animals of cool, clean water and wet meadow in the eastern United States. The wood turtle is much larger, at 15 to 20 centimetres, favours streamside forest and river corridors, and is listed as Endangered. The bog turtle is tiny, confined to groundwater-fed open wetlands, and is Critically Endangered. Both are slow to mature, long-lived, and highly vulnerable to collection and habitat loss, and both are among the highest priorities for turtle conservation in North America.