Welcome to Roger's American Box Turtle Page

Hi, my name is Roger Louie.

I signed up to get this FREE GeoCities Web page on 01/22/98, and as usual, have been slow to develop it. I'm getting there though. Some of my interests are Computers, Flight Simulator Games, Computer Programming, Science and Technology, Photography, and of course, Box Turtles. I thought I would put information about my 3 pet turtles on this page, and naturally, post pictures of them too. All 3 turtles that I have are of the type 'Three-Toed' Box Turtles. The scientific name for this type of turtle is 'Terrapene Carolina Triunguis'. They belong to the American Box Turtle family.

Click on More Facts on American Box Turtle Family to get somewhat more detailed information on the American Box Turtle family. I have tried to find specific information on the 5 types of American Box Turtle commonly available in the United States. As I find more information, I will put it in that page. I plan on concentrating on the following types of American Box Turtle types:

Eastern Box Turtle
Florida Box Turtle
Gulf Coast Box Turtle
Three-toed Box Turtle
Ornate Box Turtle

My Goals for this Web Page
Some of my Goals for this page are as follows:

Display photographs of my 3 Three-Toed Box Turtles.
Comment on these turtles living in mild Southern California (Los Angeles Area) climate.
Display detailed photographs of each turtle, to try to identify either Male or Female traits. I'm still trying to learn the physical traits between Male and Female box turtles. I have many books on the subject, but they don't seem to help that much.
List physical data on each turtle, such as weight, and when the each turtles goes into, and comes out of hibernation.
When time permits, find and put links on this page to other interesting Box Turtle related sites.

A Few words about my Turtles
My turtles are named 'T1', 'T2', and 'T3'. The names are not very personable, but then again, it's not like I call out to them with their names! My belief is to let them live in as 'wild' of an environment as possible. I want them to mate, so the wilder the better! Besides, the names are chronologically logical, in the order that I aquired them. They all live in my backyard, and have the entire backyard to live and roam in. The only time I bring them inside the house is if they have not dug into the ground to hibernate before the cold Winter temperatures comes. This occurs around November/December. Turtles 'T1' (male) and 'T3' (female) are used to humans. They don't mind being handled, and usually try to struggle free if picked up. They do not close up into their shells when handled like 'T2' (male) does. 'T2' doesn't like to be handled. It will always retract within it's shell when picked up, or approached too quickly. 'T1' and 'T2' will take food out of my hand, while 'T3' will 'clam up'. Many many years ago, perhaps 8 years ago, my backyard had TONS of snails and slugs. The situation was 'really bad'. After a couple of years, I began to notice that there weren't anymore snails and slugs in the backyard. I also noticed snail shells with 'holes' in them. I've never seen any of the turtles eating snails or slugs, but I assume that they ate all of them. Good riddance!

Backyard Predators
Stray cats that roam the neighborhood do not seem to bother the turtles, even though I've seen them staring at them, with their'stalking' stance. Wild opossiums, which come out at night, also do not bother the turtles, since the turtles find a hiding place for sleeping, before sunset. They usually find a safe sleeping place 'under' some structure, like the many wood planks in my backyard. Most wood planks are raised off of the ground with bricks, which provides a hiding place for the turtles, and also to prevent the wood from rotting. To be honest, the only 'predator' I worry about is the 'electric company meter reader'. I worry that one of these days, the guy/gal meter reader might be tempted to 'pocket' one of these critters.

My Introduction to Box Turtles
'T1' showed up in my backyard one day by accident. My backyard is completely fenced in, with concrete blocks walls, but near the wooden gate, there used to be a rectangular hole about 4 inches wide, by about 2.5 inches high. Since I live in a housing tract, in the suburbs, this turtle must have escaped from someone in the neighborhood. Well, while watering the plants in the backyard, I was shocked to see a Box Turtle staring up at me.

Honestly, I have never really looked at box turtles before this encounter. When I was very young, our family used to have those 'slimy' green (about 1.5" diameter) little water turtles you used to get in the local drug store. In those days, drug stores used to have pet departments, and usually carried those kinds of turtles. If I recall, they did not live very long. In fact, I believe those types of turtles are now illegal to own, since the slimy environment they live in can transmit the Salmonella bacteria.

My Grand Experiment
After a couple of years of just having 'T1', I purchased 'T2' from a local pet store in Huntington Beach, California, and requested that I get a female turtle. From the many books that I've collected, I sort of figured out that 'T1' was a male. My grand plan was now to have 'T1' mate with 'T2', and produce a bunch of baby turtles! Well, things didn't happen that way. First of all, was 'T2' really a female? I now know for sure that 'T1' is male since it exhibits classical male mating rituals and positions. 'T1' would mount 'T2' whenever they encountered each other, but no results (baby turtles).

When I started to have doubts about 'T2's sex, I went out and purchased 'T3', again asking for a female. This time I went to a reptile specialist type store, called 'Prehistoric Pets' in Fountain Valley, California. Well when I got him/her home, I isolated 'it' for a month just to make sure it was not sick, then released it into it's new backyard home. Eventually, 'T1' discovered 'T3', and as usual, started mounting 'T3', with 'T1' on top, 'T3' on bottom. Well, at least I knew 'T1' hadn't switched sexes. But, I now am encountering 'T2' mounting 'T3', with 'T2' on top. What's going on here. Perhaps 'T2' was a male all along. According to all of the books, the male is the one on top during mating. Heck, after 'T2's libido was awaken by 'T3', I've even seen 'T2' (male) trying to mount 'T1' (male)!

Below are some pictures of my Three-Toed Box Turtles, called T1 (male), T2 (male), and T3 (male/female?)