GARDENERS know they’re never alone. Visitors arrive nonstop, by land and by air. Birds, bees, butterflies, bats, beetles, snails, snakes, lizards, mice, frogs. Maria Sibylla Merian painted them ...

Having grown up in the Garden State, my mental image of the painted turtle is the East Coast subspecies, which is dark olive green to black on the top of the shell, and plain cream or light yellow ...

An eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), photographed in suburban New Jersey. Brian Switek is a freelance science writer and a paleontology volunteer with the Natural History Museum of Utah.