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 ...

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 ...

FRANKLIN GROVE, Ill. -- Some dogs find joy in bones and treats. For John Rucker’s seven Boykin spaniels, they are excited about praise after finding ornate box turtles. “I'm the only person in the ...

Imagine that your body is 10 times the size of your limbs. Each of your four legs are short, thick, round and tipped with long narrow claws. Your body is also your home that you carry around with you ...

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the most biodiverse places in the world, so it’s no surprise that many of the plants and animals chosen as symbols of the two states it straddles - North ...

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 ...

Over the years Pennsylvania has appointed an assemblage of flora and fauna to be official representatives of the commonwealth. To that end, a congregation of various critters have risen to that lofty ...