Turtles eat insects, worms, grubs, shellfish, fish, and some plants.  They lay 6 – 12 eggs and bury them in the ground.  The sun’s heat will hatch them.  Turtles take between 5 and 7 years to mature and live longer than any animals.  Some live for 150 years.   
    Turtles look for damp, swampy places to hibernate.  They like rotted logs, piles of leaves, bottoms of rivers or lakes, or a burrow in a river bank.  They make burrows that are from 1-3 feet underground.
   Many turtles hibernate and estivate to get away from heat or cold.  They hibernate from September to April or May.  During hibernation, the turtles dig down and bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of ponds or streams.  Their bodies slow down so much that they can live in the mud even though they don’t get much oxygen.  They are cold-blooded which means that when the outside temperatures go down, so do theirs.  During hibernation, they use fat stored from the fall.  They can go in and out of hibernation depending on the weather.  Females go into hibernation first.  Turtles might even wake up enough to swim around a little during hibernation.
    Turtles also estivate to escape the heat and dryness of summer.  They might travel to other places to get away from heat or cold.

Back to Hibernation or Estivation