Autumn Spotted #TurtleTuesday If this beautiful turtle isn't worth protecting, we don't know what is? The Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata) is native to the Eastern, Midwest, and Great Lakes regions of the United States, and southern Ontario, Canada. Here, they inhabit a myriad of different shallow wetland types, often using multiple of these in a single season. During the summer months when many of these shallow seasonal wetlands are void of water, Spotted Turtles will utilize surrounding terres

This gorgeous, starry-backed Spotted Turtle was spotted in a coastal plain wetland by Turtle Survival Alliance’s Jordan Gray on a recent afternoon survey. This turtle was first cataloged by Jordan in 2021 just meters away from where he was rediscovered last week. Due to experiencing more than two years of drought where this turtle lives, it’s likely that he has been in a relative state of dormancy, buried beneath moist leaf litter and other decomposing debris in the forest surrounding “his” wetl