The 25th box turtle, found along the bank of Goulding Creek just west of the dry creek, was documented as 090525mf.

Most of the time it’s easy to tell whether the plastron is concave (male) or flat. This turtle, which was already boxed up completely when I found it, had a very slight concavity. So it’s hard to tell which it is, which is why the designation is “mf” instead of “m" or ”f."



The color patterns are more finely detailed than on most box turtles I’ve found, with spidery “fingers” descending from the top of the carapace.



At one time there was a website whose owner made an attempt to classify the patterns of eastern box turtles. I finally found the right keywords that hit on it, or rather the AOL explanation that it had been taken down. Fortunately the wayback machine provided a screenshot.

There are two basic patterns with a third that is a mixture of the two. The “crown” pattern refers to the presence of a crownlike pattern on each scute along the very top of the carapace. This turtle does not have that pattern (first thumbnail) although it does have a radiating pattern. The turtle here shows what I think the fellow intended by the classic “crown” pattern.



The other pattern is shown by today’s turtle - it’s referred to as a “sunburst” pattern, and refers to the fingerlike rays the radiate outward, as shown by the second photo above, and the two thumbnails. Not all turtles have these rays - for instance, this one, which is arguably more spotted than radiant or crowned. There’s too much interruption of continuous pigment along a line.

Actually I think the fellow would classify today’s turtle as being a mixture. In context he doesn’t distinguish between the “crown” shape, and the presence of at least some pattern along the top, the crown, of the turtle. And that might be a weakness in the simple description.

So it’s a good start for classifying patterns, but as I look through my twenty five turtles I see, earlier, that there are quite a few that would escape the simple system. It needs some tweaking and analysis of a great many turtles to categorize them as parsimoniously as possible. I think there is some value to a classification of patterns since it makes each turtle easier to remember without referring to an increasing number of photos.

But even so any such system is at best simply descriptive. We might hypothesize that there is some genetics that underlies the pattern, such as spotting in mice or cats. But trying to figure out the genetics in box turtles is not just a very long term affair, requiring years, but also an experiment that requires penning and careful breeding of turtles. Not an easy thing to do, and not something that especially appeals to me.