Answer: The bog turtle. Biological name: Clemmys Muhlenbergi. We’ll just call it “Clemmy” for short.

And because of Clemmy’s extreme shyness, we don’t know very much about them. But one thing is certain: Clemmy’s numbers are declining rapidly and face extinction. And even though Clemmy is listed on the list of endangered creatures, very little is being done to protect them. Clemmy the bog turtle has a very uncertain future.

In fact, the task has fallen upon us–you and me—to do something to turn the situation around or we will lose forever this shy and wonderful creature. And future generations will look back at us and wonder why we didn’t do something. Why we—you and me—weren’t more concerned. Why we were asleep at the switch when the gloom of extinction was looming for Clemmy.

No bigger than the palm of your hand, what makes Clemmy distinct is that this turtle has a red spot on the neck. It spends most of its life submerged in the bog with just the top of its head and nose sticking out of the muck. Only rarely does it climb up out of the bog, usually early on a spring day and during the summer mating season.

Up until very recently it was believed that Clemmy never roamed very far from its bog. But recently scientists have glued tiny radio transmitters onto the turtle’s shell in order to track its movements. Clemmy moves! In fact, it moves all over the place!

We now know that Clemmy has the capability to roam from bog to bog. This makes perfect sense to enable it to maintain biological diversity. And diversity is what’s needed in order for genetic strains to remain strong and not become corrupted by inbreeding with ultimately cause genetic aberrations.

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