🐾 Painted Turtle

Chrysemys picta · wildlife atlas entry

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The painted turtle ( Chrysemys picta ) is the most widespread native turtle of North America. It lives in slow-moving fresh waters, from southern Canada to Louisiana and northern Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The turtle is the only species of the genus Chrysemys , which is part of the pond turtle family Emydidae. Fossils show that the painted turtle existed 15 million years ago. Four regionally based subspecies (the eastern, midland, southern, and western) evolved during... Text: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.

Painted Turtle — reference photo from iNaturalist — (c) Susan Elliott, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Susan Elliott · cc-by-nc

Record card

Scientific name	Chrysemys picta
Rank	species
Community observations	189,686 research-grade records on iNaturalist

Classification

kingdom Animalia › phylum Chordata › class Reptilia › order Testudines › family Emydidae

Seen in the wild — community photographs

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-08-29 · Lennox and Addington, CA-ON, CA
(c) mhalsted, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-08-29 · Lennox and Addington, CA-ON, CA
(c) mhalsted, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-08-29 · Lennox and Addington, CA-ON, CA
(c) mhalsted, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2025-06-17 · 56S Westray Cres, Ajax, ON, CA
(c) Hannah Westrik, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-10-09 · 205 Humber College Blvd, Etobicoke, ON M9W 5L7, Canada
(c) alexisann, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-10-23 · Etobicoke, Ontario M9W 6V3, Canadá
(c) Osvaldo Herrera, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2012-06-08 · Langlade County, WI, USA
(c) funky_commelina, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Painted Turtle photograph by the iNaturalist community — 2026-10-09 · Toronto, ON, CA
(c) Riane Mendiola, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Photographs are Creative Commons-licensed observations from iNaturalist, credited as each licence requires. Click any photo for the full research record.

All Painted Turtle records on iNaturalist → · Encyclopedia entry (Wikipedia) →

Data: iNaturalist open API · stored on this server by the wildlife build so a page request never reaches the network · observations filtered to research grade with photos.

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