Student perceptions after touching vs. holding educational animals

Educators often use reptiles as ambassadors of environmental messages during presentations because of their ease of transport and handling. Although learners may be provided opportunities to touch or hold these animals, this presents a variety of safety and liability issues for the learner and animal. Little is known about whether touching or holding an animal influences perceptions of the animal and related environmental issues. This qualitative study investigated the perceptions of 16 fifth grade students who experienced a live, tactile encounter with a corn snake and Eastern box turtle while participating in an educational class using four focus groups. Regardless of whether students touched the snake or turtle, or fully held the animal, participants noted the uniqueness of the experience and their empathy for the animal and its habitat. Students who fully held the animal thought that they learned more during the experience while students who touched the animal mentioned getting to know the animal better, regardless of whether the animal was a snake or turtle. When learners are unable to completely hold a snake or turtle, educators should consider the equally positive outcomes that can result from touching these animals with two fingers and provide opportunities for such experiences.

Consumption Patterns of a Generalist Omnivore: Eastern Box Turtle Diets in the Long Island Pine Barrens

Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina) are diet generalists and as such are predicted to have diverse diets in which familiar, low-quality foods are eaten consistently at low levels, and high-quality foods are rare but eaten whenever available. Previous work showed that they feed opportunistically on seasonally available plants (shoots, leaves, flowers, and fruit), invertebrates, mushrooms, and occasionally carrion. We used fecal samples to test optimal foraging predictions relevant to diet generalists and also whether the Eastern Box Turtle diets varied seasonally in a northeastern U.S. pine-oak habitat. We found that in-depth prey species consumption patterns of six different individuals were similar to those of the sampled population overall. Leaf and stem material was consumed by 100% of the turtles in all months despite being lower-quality than other prey available. Invertebrates were consumed by at least 80% of turtles in every study period; Coleopterans were found more commonly than other invertebrates. Snails were not eaten by more than 20% of the turtles in any study period, and mushroom consumption varied from 31–75% of samples in different study periods. Monthly diet overlap was measured using both Pianka’s Index of Overlap (PIO) and the Morisita–Horn Index (MH). The PIO method indicated that the prey consumption patterns were broadly similar from June–October, while the M–H method showed that only the July vs. August comparison was highly similar. The turtle diets changed only slightly between seasons, and they conform to predictions of diet generalist models usually applied to mammals.

A Dynamic Energy Budget Model of Ornate Box Turtle Shell Growth

Many aspects of box turtle development may depend on size rather than age. Notable examples include sexual maturity and the development of the fully closing hinge in the shell that allows box turtles to completely hide in their shells. Thus, it is important to understand how turtles grow in order to have a complete understanding of turtle biology. Previous studies show that turtle shell growth behaves in a logistic manner. These studies use functional models that fit the data well but do little to explain mechanisms. In this work we use the ideas found in dynamic energy budget theory to build a model of box turtle shell growth. We show this model fits the data as well as previous models for ornate box turtles Terrapene ornata ornata, but also offers explanations for observed phenomena, such as maximum sizes and the appearance of biphasic growth.