Today in Nature: The Turtle with Antifreeze in its veins

A Painted Turtle

September 25th: This is one of Ontario's eight species of turtles. It is a Midland Painted Turtle. When it gets cold, it will settle down into the bottom of a pond to nestle into the mud. These turtles have a special kind of antifreeze in their blood so that they can stand temperatures as low as -9C. Being below the ice, they are okay as long as the entire pond doesn't freeze solid. The other way of seeing this is that a Canadian turtle spends about half of its life under the ice, just dreaming of days like today when it can hang out in the sunshine....

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