Behavior
Musk turtles are almost entirely aquatic, spending the vast majority of their time in shallow, heavily vegetated waters of slow moving creeks, or in ponds. They typically only venture onto land when the female lays her eggs, or in some cases, to bask. They can climb sloping, partially submerged tree trunks or branches to as much as 2 m (6.6 ft) above the water surface, and have been known to drop into boats or canoes passing underneath. Their defense mechanism is to excrete a musk scent from a small gland in their underside. This is used to scare away predators and natural enemies. Thi\eir defense gives them the name of Common Musk, or Stinkpot.
Read more about this topic: Sternotherus Odoratus
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“... two men could be just alike in all their dispositions to verbal behavior under all possible sensory stimulations, and yet the meanings or ideas expressed in their identically triggered and identically sounding utterances could diverge radically, for the two men, in a wide range of cases.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“There is a striking dichotomy between the behavior of many women in their lives at work and in their lives as mothers. Many of the same women who are battling stereotypes on the job, who are up against unspoken assumptions about the roles of men and women, seem to accept—and in their acceptance seem to reinforce—these roles at home with both their sons and their daughters.”
—Ellen Lewis (20th century)
“I don’t see much future for the Americans.... Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it’s half Judaized, and the other half negrified. How can one expect a State like that to hold together?”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)