Wood Turtles are in the family Emydidae, the largest family of turtles. There are 85 species world-wide, and 3 in Nova Scotia.They were once sold as food in the United States, and called "redleg" because of the orange colour of the legs.
Size: carapace length of 23 males was 19.5 to 21.6 cm; of 14 females, 16.9 to 19.8 cm.
You can tell females from males by the shape of the plastron - it is flat in females, concave ("curved in") in males. This is helpful during mating.
In Canada, Wood Turtles are found in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and southern Ontario. They extend south to the Virginias and west to eastern Minnesota.
In Nova Scotia, Wood Turtles are found in the northeastern mainland and southwestern Cape Breton Island. There are populations in some other river systems. It is likely many have been taken as pets and released far from their natural habitat (slow-moving, meandering streams with some sand or gravel banks for nesting).
Wood Turtles surface from their underwater hibernation sites and start to be seen in late April and early may, basking in the afternoon sun on river banks.
Nesting is during the last two weeks of June and first week of July. Females dig nests in sand or gravel banks and lay from 4 to 12 ellipsoidal eggs.
Females do not start to reproduce until age 15 years.
Hatchlings emerge from the nest in autumn, probably in October.
Here is a note, probably about Snapping Turtles and Painted Turtles, from Nicolas Denys, a French immigrant to Nova Scotia in the 1600s: "In the same ponds is taken the Tortoise. Some of them are found as large around as the circumference of a hat. The shell above is streaked with red, white and blue colours. It is a very good fish. Being boiled, the shell is removed; then it is skinned. It is cut into pieces and served as a stew or a fricassee with a white sauce. There are no pullets which are as good as this".