Coahuilan Box Turtle

1 Overview

The Coahuilan Box Turtle is not a very common box turtle. Compared with its relative the Eastern Box Turtle, it adapts even more poorly to human keeping. Its carapace has no fancy patterns and no obvious distinguishing features, so few people keep this box turtle.

Chinese Name: Coahuilan Box Turtle

Binomial Name: Terrapene coahuila

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptilia

Order: Testudines

Family: Emydidae

Genus: Terrapene

Species: Coahuilan Box Turtle

Distribution: Eastern United States to the Mississippi River basin.

Appearance: The carapace is high and rounded, reaching up to about 18 cm. The plastron has a hinge in the middle that can close tightly against the carapace, forming a protective ‘box’ that shields the soft body parts.

Habits: The Coahuilan Box Turtle inhabits rivers and places where sediment promotes lush aquatic plant growth, such as swamps and wetlands.

Reproduction: Oviparous. It can lay 2–3 clutches per year, each with 1–8 eggs (mostly 2–3), with the laying season from May to September.

Diet: The Coahuilan Box Turtle is omnivorous, eating insect larvae, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, amphibians, aquatic plants, fruits, and algae, and sometimes foraging on land.

2 Physical Characteristics

Like the Asian box turtle of China, some box turtles can clamp their shells shut tightly enough to crush a snake, hence they are also called ‘snake-eating turtles.’ The Coahuilan Box Turtle is a medium-sized species with a dull carapace and few markings.

The Coahuilan Box Turtle’s shell can grow to 16.8 cm. The carapace is dome-shaped and the plastron is a slender ellipse. Carapace color is mostly green, brown, or tan. The plastron is mostly pale yellow and green, but other colors may appear. The head is mostly brown.

The Coahuilan Box Turtle’s eggs are about 2.9–3.3 cm in diameter, some only 1.7–1.8 cm. Hatchlings have spotted and black-marked shells; as they age, the carapace color and spots fade. Adult males have brown spots; females have yellow or tan spots.

The vast majority of box turtles have a hinged plastron; when fully retracted into the shell, the whole appearance is like a sealed box—hence the name box turtle. The two main genera worldwide are the North American Terrapene and the Asian Cuora. Taiwan also has one species, the well-known yellow-margined box turtle (Cuora flavomarginata).

3 Care & Husbandry

The Coahuilan Box Turtle inhabits rivers and places where sediment promotes lush aquatic plant growth, such as swamps and wetlands. It is also semi-aquatic or semi-terrestrial; it sometimes floats on the surface and changes lung size by drawing in air to enable gas exchange in the respiratory system. It is omnivorous, eating insect larvae, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, amphibians, aquatic plants (such as water chestnut plants), fruits, and algae, and sometimes forages on land.

4 Habitat & Environment

The Coahuilan Box Turtle is a typical semi-aquatic turtle, so when setting up the enclosure, a water-to-land ratio of 1:1 lets the turtle choose and regulate its environment. For outdoor keeping, the area must be enclosed, as box turtles are likely to escape.

The Environment: All turtles’ feeding is governed not by their digestive system but by temperature. When it is too cold, a box turtle will not eat no matter how hungry. Thus the living environment is crucial to their health and growth. It is ideal to keep box turtles outdoors and move them indoors only in winter. In an aquarium setup, the land area should occupy more than half the space, with the other half a shallow water zone as deep as half the shell height. When the environment is ideal, a box turtle can easily live over 50 years.

Diseases: Box turtles are generally more robust than tortoises; except for a few Chinese species such as the flower-backed box turtle that tend to refuse food, disease incidence is low. Turtle diseases are mostly shared—box turtles get what tortoises get. Most, however, cannot infect humans; only a few internal and external parasites are potentially transmissible. When a box turtle’s appetite or defecation decreases, watch for other symptoms. Weigh them weekly to track growth.

5 Feeding Requirements

The Coahuilan Box Turtle’s health is tied to diet; providing appropriate food is important. In the wild it catches small animals such as insects, so in captivity it should also receive some meat, and for balanced nutrition, vegetables and fruits as well.

The Coahuilan Box Turtle digs for earthworms underground or insects in dead wood, and eats snails, caterpillars, and beetles as staple foods; it also eats fruits, grass, berries, fungi, and wildflowers—mainly foraging on land. In captivity, successful long-term keeping requires more time observing feeding and adjusting the diet for balanced nutrition. Basically, animal protein such as mealworms, crickets, or earthworms should make up 50% of the diet, and can be replaced partly by box turtle pellets.

Plant foods such as common vegetables, beans, radish, and potato can make up 30%. High-fiber plants such as grass, alfalfa, straw, and radish leaves make up 10%. A combination of varied foods helps maintain balanced nutrition and a healthy digestive tract. The remaining 10% consists of fruits such as grapes, apples, kiwi, strawberries, and cherries. Besides daily food, vitamins and calcium powder must be supplied at least weekly, mixed into food, and the turtle must get regular sunlight or UVB reptile lighting, or calcium cannot be absorbed.