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Painted Turtle — printable fact sheet
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Painted Turtle
Chrysemys picta
Chrysemys picta is the most widespread native turtle in North America, and its hatchlings do something no other turtle in the region can: they stay in the nest chamber through their first winter, only a few centimetres below the soil surface, and survive being frozen. The hatchl…
Did you know?
- Painted Turtle hatchlings can survive winter in frozen mud, enduring body temperatures below freezing without lasting harm.
- Painted turtles supplement pond breathing in winter by taking up small amounts of oxygen across the skin and the lining of the cloaca, but under ice this is nowhere near enough — the shell-buffering system is what actually keeps them alive. A painted turtle can live over 50 years in the wild. The nest-temperature sex switch operates in a narrow window during the middle third of incubation, so a cool August can flip the sex ratio of a whole cohort.
What I learned
Draw the painted turtle
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