Painted turtles spend so much of their time basking above their own reflections that they bring to mind the Greek myth about Narcissus. He was an extraordinarily handsome man who saw his own reflection in a pool and didn’t realize that he was looking at himself. He fell in love with his own beauty, couldn’t stop looking at himself, and eventually withered into a Narcissus flower.
Painted turtles, or Eastern PTs (Chrysemys picta picta) to be more precise, probably are our most beautiful freshwater turtles for those who can expand their perceptions of beauty to reptiles. In any case, these turtles certainly are our most colorful.
Their heads, neck, and legs range from dark olive green to black, with bright yellow and red streaking. The tops of their shells (their carapaces) are dark olive with pale yellow borders around their shell plates (their scutes) and bright yellow and/or red markings at the shell borders. The bottoms of their shells (their plastrons) range from pale yellow to red-orange, sometimes with a central inkblot-like marking.
Nonetheless, painted turtles are not narcissists. They’re realists. Turtles have to bask for a number of reasons, chief of which is to regulate their cold-blooded body temperatures, especially to warm up enough to remain active. The sunlight also allows them to synthesize vitamin D3 for bone health and calcium absorption and helps avoid fungal infections.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on May 3 and 18, 2025.)