Ornate Box Turtle
The Ornate Box turtle has been on Illinois’s threatened species list since 2009. This box turtle is very fancy, or ‘ornate,’ with bright yellow stripes radiating across its shell. The turtle favors a prairie habitat that has open grasslands for hunting insects, spiders, worms and vegetation and also likes sandier soils suitable for digging burrows. This turtle species is unique, for it has a hinged plastron (the shell on the turtle’s underside), which allows the turtle to completely pull its head, tail and legs inside the shell for protection.
- Filename
- Ornate Box Turtle
- Copyright
- Dee Hudson
- Image Size
- 3000x2400 / 5.1MB
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animal Nachusa Grasslands animals Dee Hudson Photography Nachusa Grasslands native turtle nature photography near threatened conservation status ornate box turtle Nachusa Grasslands ornate box turtle photography prairie > Nachusa Grasslands reptile reptiles terrestrial turtle turtle > reptile turtles turtles in Illinois The Nature Conservancy