Taxonomy
The bog turtle was noted in the 18th century by Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg, a self-taught botanist and clergyman. Muhlenberg, who named more than 150 North American plant species, was conducting a survey of the flora of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, when he discovered the small turtle. In 1801, Johann David Schoepff named Muhlenberg's discovery as Testudo muhlenbergii.
In 1829, Richard Harlan renamed the turtle Emys muhlenbergii. The species was subsequently renamed to Calemys muhlenbergii by Louis Agassiz in 1857, and to Clemmys muhlenbergii by Henry Watson Fowler in 1906. Synonyms include Emys biguttata, named in 1824 by Thomas Say on the basis of a turtle from the vicinity of Philadelphia, and Clemmys nuchalis, described by Dunn in 1917 from near Linville, North Carolina. Today, there are various names for the bog turtle, including mud turtle, marsh turtle, yellowhead, and snapper.
The genus name was changed to Glyptemys in 2001. The bog turtle and the wood turtle, Glyptemys insculpta, had until then been included in the genus Clemmys, which also included spotted turtles (C. guttata) and western pond turtles (C. marmorata). Nucleotide sequencing and ribosomal DNA analyses suggested that bog turtles and wood turtles are closely related, but neither is directly related to spotted turtles, hence the separation of the genus Glyptemys.
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