Western Painted Turtle

Also known as Painted Turtle, Western Basking Turtle

Western painted turtles spend sunny spring and summer days stacked in rows atop fallen logs, soaking up solar heat essential for digestion. Intricate yellow lines run across their dark heads and necks, while their lower shells flare into brilliant red and orange net-like patterns along the underside margins. During ice-bound winters, adults bury themselves in mud at pond bottoms, surviving for months in anoxic conditions without breathing atmospheric air.