Below a clouded sky in the middle of Illinois prairie, a handsome brown spaniel dashed ahead through brambles and bobbed back up with a catch. There, resting in his jaws as his tail wagged, was a ...

Turtles aren’t known for their speed. In fact, it’s usually quite the opposite. (Slow and steady wins the race and all that.) But one type of turtle is actually incredibly quick, at least with its ...

There’s a good reason for the box turtle’s name. A hinge on the bottom of its shell lets the land-dwelling turtle pull its legs, head, and tail inside and close it up tight — like a box. When I was a ...

Ornate box turtles and their kin face steep challenges in today’s world, but people can help out by raising the deck height ...

When Ann Berry Somers was 7 years old and growing up in North Carolina, she encountered a box turtle on a path. She picked up the small reptile and looked into its eyes. Instead of retreating into its ...