Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently read an article that examined daytime forms of Ornate Box Turtles of the Nebraska Sandhills and found they most often make a form under a yucca. Yuccas provide shade, and their root system consists mainly of just a tap root so the turtle can partly bury into the soil.

The authors note that research has shown that grazing increases density of yuccas! Box turtles benefit from man's introduction of cattle.

such a rarity that humans help box turtles, especially in the name of "progress", so to speak....

ya know my parental units used to have all these really neat 4 or 5 lined skinks living in their gardens.
Then they had the yucca removed & now there are no more skinks living there. It's a shame because watching the skinks was interesting.
We have one yucca on our backlot with 2 mesquites I like leaving them where they are.
-----
PHRatz

I also heard the ornate box turtles in some parts of Texas declined when cattle was removed from grazing land. Seems the turtles feed well on dung beetles and flies.
-----
Tess
Kingsnake.com Forum Host

This is a pretty common thing, but is still really cool to point out. I love to learn all of the interdependencies between animals, plant, humans, etc.. Some creatures thrive near human habitation and under human intervention...others don't, unfortunately.

Bog turtles are somewhat dependent on grazing in certain types of habitats where they occur. The grazing animals (usually cattle) help to keep larger shrubs and trees from growing and shading out their bogs. This may explain why the numbers of Bog turtles have remained very high in parts of PA. There are huge tracts of wet pastures under constant grazing by dairy cows, especially in Amish territory.

Cool stuff.

Humans certainly improved habitat for white tailed deer!