Smart. Sensitive. Sociable (at least with lady box turtles and anything you want to eat). Flexible. Multi-talented. Strong. Speedy. Great climber. Good swimmer. Five-star hibernator.
These are just some of the many awesome things about being a 3-toed box turtle.
But one of the coolest is your scutes (pronounced “scoots”). The scutes are located on the top portion of your two-part shell, or carapace.
Scutes are actually a type of hard scales – plates of armor that fit together like pieces of a perfect jigsaw puzzle to protect their valuable contents – aka YOU.
It is rumored that 3-toed box turtles usually have 13 big inner scutes along with an outer ring of smaller up-turned scutes.
Love & Feathers & Shells 