Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I found this eastern box today near my house. Look how bad that shell is!! It looks very old, what do you think happend? I just snapped this one picture and sent her back on her way. I just moved to southern ohio and I cant believe how many eastern box turtles there are down here. I just moved from northern ohio and I use to see eastern box turtles up there when I was younger but its been a good 4 years since i seen any. I just moved here and have seen tons already!!! Its nice to know there's still some strong populations in ohio. Let me know what you guys think happend, thanks

'Andys Turts and Torts'

RedoFootMan@yahoo.com

Good gracious!! That's the worst I've ever seen. I have always seen pictures of box turtle injured in fires where the scutes seem to melt. I've never actually seen any in the wild, so I'm not sure what they really look like.

I'd be concerned about some type of fungal or bacterial cause with the way that looks. Andy, be very careful about the transfer of pathogens to your turtles! A friendly veterinarian may be willing to take a couple of swabs of those lesions and try to identify the cause.

Do you really think the turtle went through a fire though? I Just threw the idea out there. The front half of the turtle is fine, i mean head legs everything. Reagardless of what happend to it, i'd say by looking at the turtle and how it heeled, i'd say it was very old and the turtle recovered well. It was a pretty friendly boxie. But the skin or anything didn't have any kinds of problems

Andy

RedoFootMan@yahoo.com

I looked around last night after reading your post, and I found a couple of pictures. It seems like I've seen several pictures of fire damaged box turtles before where the shell "bubbles up". It looks like the scutes almost melt. In the pictures I found last night, though, it looks like the turtle that you found.

I think fire damage is entirely possible. I just think that the margins of the damage are too clean. I've seen some pretty wicked fungal infections of turtle shells, and some look a lot like the turtle you found. There are also scattered reports of people setting fire to turtles on purpose...I guess that's always a possibility. Does the area where the turtle was found have a history of fires? Where I live now, we typically don't have forest fires. Where I grew up, they were a yearly occurence. Amazingly, I never found any turtles that appeared to be fire damaged out of the hundreds that I saw.

Here's one picture, and two links to other pictures. I can't get all three to load on here. If you can access some old Herp. review texts, Dodd apparently has done some thorough studies of fire damage in box turtles.

http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/pics/Boxturtle2.jpg

http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/articles/images/burnedbox.jpg

Burned Ambo.

-- Does the area where the turtle was found have a history of fires? Where I live now, we typically don't have forest fires. Where I grew up, they were a yearly occurence. Amazingly, I never found any turtles that appeared to be fire damaged out of the hundreds that I saw. --

All it takes is one bonfire of raked leaves, though...It wouldn't have be where wildfires happen naturally.

Someone creates a leaf pile, adding to it over the course of a few weeks, until the majority of leaves have fallen. In the meantime a turtle takes shelter in the leaf pile. You can guess the rest.

By the way, this is one way (for folks who live in less densely populated areas where leaf burning is customary/legal) you can be more "turtle friendly": when raking leaves, either a)don't burn them at all, or b) burn the pile immediately, that same day: don't give a turtle time to find the pile and settle in.

No doubt, Steph. Even without regular wildfires, fire damage is very possible. If the turtle was found around homes where burning takes place, even more so.

I guess I was playing the odds game. Andy has lived in the area for only a short time, and he's already found a turtle with apparent fire damage. I lived in an area for many years where the forest actually required regular fires to thrive. I've walked through charred pine barrens and have found untouched turtles sitting very peacefully among the carnage. Large pockets of sand with no debris or vegetation may provide the necessary refuge...who knows? If Andy knew of a forest fire that occured in the area in the past few decades, I think it would reinforce fire damage as the cause.

Steph, do you think it is fire damage? I'm torn.

I think that the damage shown is VERY reminiscent of the photos showing fire damage that I've seen. I haven't had the opportunity to take a close look at fire damaged shells in person, so I can't really say for sure.

I would say it would be very rare for a forest fire here but maybe not entirely possible. I'll do some checking around to see what I can find. I posted a picture of it in my photo gallery on ks and someone replied last night and said its fire damage for sure. That would be my only guess... The turtle was found right near my woods by my house. Its a large woods with several streams. There must be quite the boxie population. I can't wait to the spring to go out a lot and observe hopefully many of them. I love seeing wild box turtles. ITs just somthing i'm not use to. But as far as anyone having a fire around here, i doubt it. but then again, this could of of happend to the turtle 20 years ago so who's to say what happen then?

Andy

RedoFootMan@yahoo.com

That's a lucky turtle! It's amazing to see what they can live through.