The majority of field sites we go to have either Eastern box turtles or Ornate box turtles. However, we went to a site last week that had both. Here is how you differentiate between the two species:

	Eastern box turtles	Ornate box turtles
Scientific Name	Terrapene carolina carolina	Terrapene ornata ornata
Native Range	(Todd, 2000, p. 5)	(Redder et al., 2006, p.10)
Habitat	Forested areas	Prairies
Image	More color variation, may see yellow, brown, orange, or red	Tend to have yellow lines on a brown background on carapace with yellow or orange accents on scales
Size	Larger	Smaller

References

Redder, A. J., Dodd, C. K., Jr., Keinath, D., (2006). Ornate box turtle (Terrapene ornata ornata): A technical conservation assessment. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Region. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5182076.pdf

Todd, C. S. (2000). Eastern box turtle assessment. Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife: Wildlife Division. https://www.maine.gov/ifw/docs/box-turtle-speciesassessment.pdf