What Do Wild Painted Turtles Eat?

Basking turtles

Painted turtles are popular pets, but they also live in the wild throughout North America. What wild painted turtles eat depends upon the food sources available in their native habitat.

Painted Turtle

The turtle at the center of this picture is a painted turtle, with its "painted" underside visible.

Painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) are small, freshwater turtles that range throughout North America. Their shells, or carapaces, are 4 to 10 inches long, green to black in color, and shaped like a flattened oval. They get their name from the colorful underside of their top shell, which often has red, yellow, green and black markings. Their heads are usually green or black with yellow stripes. There are four species of painted turtle: eastern painted (C. p. picta), midland painted (C.p. marginata), southern painted (C.p. dorsalis) and western painted (C. p. bellii).

Like all turtles, painted turtles are cold-blooded, which means they cannot maintain their own body temperature. Consequently, they are often found sun-bathing throughout the day to get warm enough to look for food.

Native Habitat

Painted turtles prefer shallow or slow-moving water.

The most widely distributed species of turtle in North America, the painted turtle makes its home in bodies of permanent fresh water. It lives in the soft bottoms of these ponds, lakes, marshes, and creeks, in aquatic vegetation, and on basking areas such as half-sunken logs or protruding rocks. They spend their nights sleeping at the pond bottom or half-submerged, and then come to the surface to bask at sunrise before looking for food several hours later. They may forage again later in the day before retiring to the safety of the water.

Omnivorous

Worms are among the things painted turtles find tasty.

Omnivores are animals that eat plants as well as other animals, and the painted turtle enjoys a broad, omnivorous diet that includes nearly anything they can find. In their ponds, painted turtles hunt small fish and search the mud for worms and leeches to eat. They happily eat insects, aquatic and terrestrial plants, and any fruit that falls within reach. Painted turtles also work on nature's clean-up crew, devouring carrion and leftovers from other predators.

Beaks, Not Teeth

Like this turtle, painted turtles have beaks rather than teeth.

Rather than teeth, painted turtles have strong beaks. Though they can use these to chew their food, they prefer to swallow it whole. They can also use their beaks to break off pieces from a larger meal into bite-size chunks.

Winter Behavior

When ponds freeze over, painted turtles retreat to the mud.

With the exception of small fish and some underwater carrion, little food is available to wild painted turtles in climates that experience freezing winters. They are tolerant of cold, but when the temperatures drop too low, they bury themselves in the mud.

References

• "Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center: Painted Turtle"
• "Tortuga Gazette: Painted Turtle"