The chicken turtle is predominantly carnivorous and feeds mostly on invertebrates such as crayfish, dragonflies and spiders, but is also known to eat tadpoles, carrion and occasionally plant material.

Although feeding and mating take place in aquatic environments, the chicken turtle is very well adapted to living on land and may spend more than half the year out of the water.

Like many reptiles, it spends much of the day basking in the sun to regulate its body temperature, but unlike most other aquatic turtles, it hibernates over the winter months except in the warmer, southernmost reaches of its range.

[8] Both descriptions were based on drawings and a single specimen collected by Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina some years previously.

[9] Subsequent studies placed the chicken turtle into various related genera (Emys, Clemmys and Terrapene)[5][10] before Louis Agassiz assigned it to the current genus in 1857.

[32] A fossil found in Alachua County, Florida dating from the middle Pliocene was originally thought to belong to D. reticularia, but was later identified by Jackson as an extinct relative, D. carri.

[41] Descriptions of the chicken turtle disagree on the base color of its skin but it is generally reported to be darker than the carapace, varying from olive to brown to black.

The main bulk of its territory begins on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River in southeast Louisiana and extends eastward along the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico.

Its range begins to overlap with the Florida chicken turtle towards the north-central part of the state, with intergrades having been identified in Taylor, Levy, Gilchrist and Clay counties.

A small colony was known to inhabit First Landing State Park in Virginia, but several studies have only managed to locate one adult female and it is thought this population may be extirpated.

[21] Its range extends from the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and Louisiana, northward into the south and east of Oklahoma and through Arkansas towards Missouri.

All three subspecies have similar preferences; they like quiet, still or slow-moving bodies of water such as shallow ponds, oxbow lakes, drainage ditches, borrow pits, marshes, swales, cypress swamps, and Carolina bays.

[38] These maritime forest habitats are prone to drying out easily in the summer and can be affected by storms and sea spray, but research into one of these groups found no meaningful differences in longevity, growth rate or sex ratio between members of this population and their mainland counterparts.

[55] The chicken turtle is diurnal; its main periods of activity, such as feeding and mating, take place in the morning and late afternoon, either side of the warmest hours of the day.

[2] It leaves the water in late September to find a suitable site for the winter, usually either in mud and vegetation around the edges of the ponds and swamps which it inhabits.

[60] Turtles unable to find a suitable aquatic habitat during particularly dry years may migrate to higher ground and burrow into the earth to undergo aestivation,[46] a period of dormancy similar to hibernation.

[61] The mating season of the chicken turtle can be estimated by the times of year in which male testicular volume is greatest, indicating maximum sperm production.

He then attracts the female's attention by making short, rapid swimming motions, gazing at her and vibrating his outstretched foreclaws against her face and neck.

For example, in Florida nesting takes place continuously between mid-September and early March, with the possibility of an interruption if the winter weather is particularly cold.

[65] In South Carolina and Arkansas, nesting and egg-laying may recommence in February,[56][50] while in Virginia, in the northernmost reaches of the chicken turtle's range, it may not start again until March.

[58] The egg's yolk contains a very high proportion of fats, on average 32.5% of dry matter, which help to nourish the hatchling during this long period in the nest.

Females that reach a length of around 180 mm (7.09 in) appear to become much less reproductively active; they may only lay eggs every second or third nesting season, or they may cease to ovulate altogether.

[38] Carr described having seen a chicken turtle eating Nuphar (bonnet-lily) buds,[67] while captive adults have been observed feeding on gopher frog tadpoles,[79] lettuce, and canned fish.

[45] In a 1997 study of chicken turtle fecal matter collected during the summer months in South Carolina, dragonfly nymphs were the most commonly observed food, along with snails, spiders and insects such as backswimmers and water bugs.

Decapods (including crayfish and shrimp), dragonflies and beetles were the most frequently encountered foods; six out of twenty-five turtles had consumed trace amounts of plants or algae.

It waits in the water and strikes its long neck out quickly with its mouth open to catch live food,[82] relying on sight to detect its prey.

In 1968, Fain described a new species of cheyletoid mite, Caminacarus deirochelys, found in the rectum of a chicken turtle collected in Englewood, Florida, thirty years earlier.

[82] Along with other native reptiles, removal of chicken turtles from their natural habitat is regulated in several states throughout its range including Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.

[2] Since it prefers to live in small, shallow bodies of water that can easily dry out during the hotter months, the chicken turtle is also susceptible to the loss of upland habitats surrounding wetlands to which it migrates during periods of drought.

[82] Scientists in Oklahoma have developed quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay tests to enable the presence of four uncommon or vulnerable reptiles, including the chicken turtle, to be identified through environmental DNA.