• Of all the turtles found in North America, the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) is the most widely distributed, and can be found throughout the United States. There are four sub-species: the eastern, midland, western and southern painted turtle. Of the four, the southern painted turtle is the smallest and features a distinctive red, orange or yellow stripe down its shell.
  
  

What Does a Painted Turtle Look Like?

• Painted turtles are relatively small, with an adult having a shell length of 4 to 10 inches. Their shells are smooth, flat and oval, and may be green to black (some sub-species have red markings). Their bottom shell is usually yellow, and their skin black to olive in color. They are striped with yellow on the head, and red and yellow on the neck, legs and tail.
  
  

Where Do They Live?

• Painted turtles prefer shallow, slow-moving waters with muddy bottoms, and live in freshwater habitats such as lakes, ponds, creeks and marshes. They inhabit the water's soft bottoms and aquatic vegetation. They also require basking spots on and near the water. As many as 50 painted turtles may be seen stacked atop each other basking in the sun on one log. Such basking helps them attain proper body temperature and helps eliminate parasites.
  
  

What Do They Eat?

• Painted turtles are omnivorous, meaning that they eat almost anything they find, including fish, insects, crayfish, tadpoles, aquatic plants, snails and slugs, and even carrion. According to Mary Cohen of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club, while younger painted turtles are carnivorous (meat-eating), they become more herbivorous (plant-eating) as they mature.
  
  

How Can You Tell The Sexes Apart?

• The male of the species is smaller than the female. Males also have longer front claws and thicker tails than the females. Additionally, the males have a concave bottom shell to aid in mating. The sex of a painted turtle is not determined by genetics, but rather by the external temperature at the time of egg incubation, with cold temperatures (77 degrees F) producing males and warm temperatures (87 degrees F) producing females. At 84 degrees F, both male and female hatchlings are produced.
  
  

How Do They Grow?

• The painted turtle's shell has 13 separate bone plates, which are called scutes. As the turtle grows and forms new plates, it sheds the outer layer of scutes. Since rings form on the new scutes as old ones are shed, a painted turtle's age can be determined by counting the rings, just like in the cross-section of a tree. It has been estimated that this turtle can live to be 40 years old in the wild, according to the Warner Nature Center.