Neonatal ectotherms face a wide range of environmental hazards because of the diverse habitats they inhabit and their small body sizes; this is especially true amongst turtles that live in temperate zones and experience cold winter conditions after hatching. Such hatchlings must balance challenges involving desiccation, freezing, and predation, among other threats. Turtle hatchlings either overwinter in water, terrestrially in relatively shallow nests, terrestrially deep below nests, or terrestrially outside of the nest entirely, and these different microhabitats are associated with different desiccation and freezing risks. We measured desiccation tolerance of individuals of six turtle species, including two (Diamondback Terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin, Schoepf 1973) and Eastern Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina, Linnaeus 1758)) that utilize a strategy that has not previously been explored, along with Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta, Leconte 1830), whose overwintering microhabitat is uncertain. We found additional support for the hypothesis that desiccation resistance is associated with overwintering strategies in hatchling turtles. Further investigation into the overwintering strategies of M. terrapin and T. carolina would be productive.
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