Painted Turtle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| iPainted Turtle | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||
| Chrysemys picta (Schneider, 1783) | ||||||||||||||
| | ||||||||||||||
|
C. p. picta - Eastern Painted Turtle |
The Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) is a reptile that is common in North America, and is a water turtle related to other water turtles such as sliders and cooters. The turtle lives in ponds, lakes, marshes, and in slow-moving rivers that have soft, muddy bottoms. Their shell is used to protected them from their perdators.
In the wild, this turtle may live for twenty to thirty years[1]; in captivity it can live over twenty years.They adapt to spend the night at the bottom of the wetland and also they have to have a baby it usually occurs in the late part of April. The painted turtle spends most of its time in the water but often lies on floating logs in the sun, as well as on rocks or by the shore.
During very cold weather painted turtles hibernate, burying themselves for months in the mud beneath streams and ponds. The mud acts as an insulator and helps to keep the turtle warm in harsh winter months. Painted turtles can survive long winters in ice-covered ponds because they can live for several months without breathing oxygen.
These turtles make great pets since they reproduce quickly and pose no threat of becoming extinct.
The Painted Turtle is the only species in the genus Chrysemys. It is comprised of 4 sub-species.
[edit] Diet
The Painted Turtle, when young eats mostly carnivorously, dining on larvae, crickets, beetles and maggots. When they mature, they eat more omnivorously, with their primary diet including duckweed, water lilies and algal matter, as well as eating insects, worms, leeches, crayfish, tadpoles, snails and small fish.
