Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina)

When you enter the exhibit room, you will be greeted by our two eastern box turtles in their terrarium to the left of the doors. These animals are on display unless they are out at a school, helping us educate children about box turtles. Both of our box turtles are male. The turtle with the notch at the front edge of its carapace (upper shell) is named Nick; the other turtle is Tony

The box turtle gets its common name from its hinged lower shell, called the plastron. When frightened, box turtles can pull their head, tail, and legs into the shell and close the plastron up against the carapace, essentially boxing themselves in for protection.

Box turtles are omnivorous; they will eat almost anything they can fit in their mouths, including berries, insects, roots, flowers, eggs, and amphibians. Our turtles are given a diet of tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, and mealworms or crickets for protein.

Box turtles generally live for 25-35 years but have been known to live over 100 years!

On average, an adult eastern box turtle is about 5 to 6 inches long.

Box turtles are the most common terrestrial turtle in the eastern United States and the only land turtle in New Jersey. They are usually found near ponds, fields, meadows, and woodlands, but are most abundant in open forests with plenty of underbrush. Due to habitat loss as well as being captured as pets, the Eastern box turtle is listed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as a "State Species of Species Concern."

Our aquatic turtles, an Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) and Red eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), both females, are on display in the exhibit room. You will find them in our 535 gallon aquarium.

The smaller turtle is our Eastern Painted Turtle, a species native to New Jersey. Painted turtles can be found in lakes, streams, shallow ponds, and marshes and are often seen resting on logs in still water: they are abundant in our Quarry Pond. They feed on both plant and animal matter, and will eat worms, larvae, snails, salamanders, and small fish. Females grow to 4-10 inches in length, males 3-6 inches. The species can be found throughout New Jersey and its conservation status is stable.

The larger turtle, a red eared slider, gets its common name from the red mark behind its eyes and its ability to slide into the water at the slightest sign of threat. It is not a native species in New Jersey; most of our populations originated from pet turtles that were released. Their native range is along the Mississippi Valley from the Gulf of Mexico north to Illinois. The red-eared slider is highly adaptable, aggressive and bold, and competes for food and space with native turtle species. They have out-competed the native turtles, especially in urban environments, and have replaced them in the food chain.

In its natural habitat, sliders feed on aquatic plants and invertebrates, fish, and tadpoles. Females grow to a length of 10-12 inches while males reach a length of 8-10 inches. In captivity, the average lifespan of the red-eared slider is 20-40 years. They have been reported to live up to 80 years in the wild.

Our turtles are fed a diet of “gourmet” aquatic turtle food, containing a balanced meal with vitamins, minerals, and protein. You will often find one of them basking on the rocks under the heat lamp above the aquarium. If you see only one turtle, it’s a safe bet that you will find the other harassing “Rocky”, our artificial turtle who guards the entrance to the cave at the bottom of the aquarium.

We are often asked where the turtles in Quarry Pond go in the winter. They are likely sitting in the mud at the bottom. They kind of shut their bodies down, barely breathing at all, their heart barely beating at all. They get the little energy they need from their body tissues. This state is called “brumation”.

The fish in our aquarium are Pumpkinseed Sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus), the same native species that inhabit Quarry Pond. Pumpkinseed are a type of sunfish, one of the most widespread and abundant freshwater fish in New Jersey. All sunfish are brightly colored, especially from June to August when they are spawning. The pumpkinseed can be distinguished from the other sunfish by its black gill flap with a bright red-orange tip.

Their average size is about 7 inches, but they can grow up to 16 inches. In the wild, pumpkinseed eat insects, insect larvae, mollusks, snails, crustaceans, small fish and leeches. They are effective at controlling mosquito populations.

You will notice that our aquarium has plexiglass barriers in the corners. These provide a haven for the fish to avoid the turtles. They can swim freely in the aquarium but can go behind the barriers to escape predation.

Outside of our exhibit room we have a few animal ambassadors that are used in school and public programs to teach about different species. Our two corn snakes, Cheddar and Pepper Jack, are beloved in all the programs they are presented in. Both corn snakes are orange in hue, Cheddar is an albino corn snake and Pepper Jack is a creamsicle corn snake.

Corn snakes (Pantherophis guttatus) are found in the eastern United States from the southern New Jersey Pine Barrens south through Florida, west into Louisiana and parts of Kentucky.

Although it commonly occurs in other regions, the corn snake was listed as a threatened species in New Jersey in 1979 due to severe habitat loss and illegal collecting for the pet trade. Continued and increased threats led to its reclassification as an endangered species in 1984. Therefore, the collection or possession of wild corn snakes is prohibited in New Jersey and is punishable with fines and/or imprisonment.

Both of our snakes are color morphs that were bred in captivity by licensed breeders and so it is legal to possess them.

In the wild, corn snakes are highly variable in coloration, the upperparts range from brown to light orange or red and are marked with brick red blotches outlined in black.

Corn snakes are primarily nocturnal. They prefer pine-oak forests with an understory of low brush, such as is found in the NJ Pine Barrens. They spend most of their time underground, prowling through rodent burrows, under loose bark and beneath logs, rocks, and other debris during the day.

The corn snake is a constrictor, meaning that the snake suffocates its quarry by tightly wrapping its body around the prey. We do not feed live prey to our captive snakes, so we have not witnessed this activity.

Long and slim, the average length of a corn snake is 30 to 48 inches. Their average life span is up to about 23 years in captivity, but generally much less in the wild.