The bottom shell (plastron) is yellow to brown with two hinges, allowing the turtle to close each end separately.

Their diet includes worms, crayfish, frogs, snails, fish, fairy shrimp, slugs, leeches, tadpoles, and other aquatic insects and invertebrates.

[citation needed] This species spends most of the year estivating underground, becoming active again when ponds refill from the summer monsoon season.

[citation needed] It is believed that in their natural habitat that spring rains induce the turtles to begin nesting.

This is believed to aid in survival rates of the hatchlings, because some water bodies freeze solid during the winter.

Another benefit of waiting to emerge in the spring is that hatchlings enter an environment of increasing resources, such as heat, light, and food.