The Ornate Box Turtle is generally a ‘prairie turtle’, inhabiting treeless, sandy plains and gently rolling country with grass and scattered low brush as the dominant vegetation. It may enter woodlands, particularly along streams. Subspecies luteola in Arizona and New Mexico may also be found on the desert fringe (Ernst et al. 1994). In nature, Terrapene ornata feed mainly on insects (mainly beetles, caterpillars and grasshoppers);berries, carrion and other items are also eaten (Legler 1960, Ernst et al. 1994).

Both sexes of Ornate Box turtles may reach 15.4 cm carapace length (CL). Most males mature at about 10-11 cm plastron length (PL), and females at PL of about 11-13 cm, at ages of eight to nine and 10-11, respectively (Legler 1960). Average clutch size is 4.7 eggs in Kansas (Legler 1960) and 3.5 in Wisconsin (Doroff and Keith 1990); extremes of clutch size are two to eight. Depending on location and probably on environmental conditions, some females may produce a second clutch in a year, while many females skip reproduction for one or two years (Legler 1960, Doroff and Keith 1990). Hatchlings measure about 30 mm (range 28-32 mm). The oldest animal in a studied Kansas population was estimated to be 28 years old, and the population was estimated to have almost complete turnover in 25 years (Metcalf and Metcalf 1985). Ernst et al. (1994) reported a captive female of about 42 years of age (Ernst and Lovich 2009).

No natural history information is available on the Mexican populations.

Terrapene ornata inhabits most of the United States between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi, ranging southwest into the Sonora desert and north up to South Dakota and Wisconsin. (Iverson 1992, Dodd 2001).

Terrapene ornata ornata occurs throughout most of the species’ range, from the Rocky Mountains foothills eastward to localized areas of occurrences as far as southern Wisconsin and northwestern Indiana.

Terrapene ornata luteola inhabits southeastern Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas west of the Pecos, USA, and northern Sonora and much of Chihuahua in Mexico.

Terrapene ornata is included in CITES Appendix II. It is protected under a variety of US laws and regulations (review by Dodd 2001), while turtles in general are protected from exploitation under Mexican wildlife and natural resource legislation.

The species likely inhabits a substantial number of protected areas across its range, but specific details are not available and would be desirable. Very limited information is available on the status and biology of the western subspecies luteola inhabiting the Sonora and Coahuila deserts, and studies would be appropriate.