Mississippi, Florida, Eastern Mud Turtles: Domed, Musky, Two-Hinged

Summary: North American mud turtle habitats get 11-scuted brown-olive uppersides, 11-scuted two-hinged lowersides, marked or plain heads and blunt or spiny tails.

Eastern mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum subrubrum); Mattaponi Wildlife Management Area, Caroline County, northeastern Virginia; Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011, 23:45:11: Kelly Geer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

North American mud turtle habitats adopt distribution ranges in the United States from Long Island southward through Florida and eastern Texas, westward through Indiana and the Mississippi Valley and everywhere in-between.

Mud turtles bear the species and the subspecies common names mud turtles and Mississippi,  Florida and eastern mud turtles because of muddy biogeographies, bodies and burrows. The scientific name Kinosternon subrubrum considers the subspecies names Kinosternon subrubrum eastward, Kenosternon subrubrum steindachneri in Florida and Kinosternon subrubrum hippocrepis in Mississippi and environs. Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre's (1752-Sept. 20, 1804) in 1789 and John Edward Gray's (Feb. 12, 1800-March 7, 1855) in 1855 drive respective first- and second-named subspecies' taxonomies.

Mississippi, Florida and eastern mud turtle life cycles expect brackish or freshwater, slow-moving lagoons, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and swamps with muddy banks, bottoms and burrows.

February through September, March through October and April through November fit into mud turtle life cycles as commonest begin-end breeding, egg incubation and hatchling emergence combinations.

Mississippi, Florida and eastern mud turtles go for diurnal semi-aquatic lifestyles that get Kinosternidae mud turtle family members out of mud banks, baths, bottoms and burrows. They hasten away from hasslers and hunters to hidden homes amid emergent, floating, submerged or waterside vegetation or within alligator nests and beaver or muskrat lodges. Their defensive interludes and offensive intervals involve feet, jaws and necks, shells and musk glands since they involve clawing, biting, hiding and secreting horrible-colored, terrible-scented liquids.

Breeders, collectors, off-shore drillers, polluters and predatory estuarine crocodiles, ghost crabs, groupers, gulls, octopuses, raccoons, rats, requiem sharks and tiger sharks jeopardize North American mud turtles.

Mississippi, Florida and eastern mud turtles keep safe with muddy wetland camouflage and immersions up to snouts, horned spiny, thick tails if males and scutes (plates).

Females lay two to three clutches of 1 to 6 brittle, elliptical, hard-shelled, 1-inch (25-millimeter), porcelain-like, translucent blue- or pink-white eggs in 3- to 5-inch- (7.6- to 12.7-centimeter-) deep cavities. Hatchlings move out of shells in loamy, sandy or vegetative litter within 90 to 100 days and mature physically and sexually within 5 to 7 years. Anemones, brown algae, comb jellies, crustaceans, fish, grasses, jellyfish, molluscs, Portuguese man-of-wars, shrimp, sponges, squids and urchins nourish omnivorous (everything-eating) Mississippi, Florida and eastern mud turtles.

Mississippi, Florida, eastern mud turtle habitats offer season-coldest temperatures, north to southward, from minus 15 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to minus 1.66 degrees Celsius).

Mississippi, Florida, eastern mud turtles populate continental shelves, hard-bottomed subtropical and tropical waters no deeper than 60 feet (18.28 meters), sea lagoons, sponge-rich reefs and shoals.

Dome-shaped, keelless (ridgeless), oval, patternless, smooth brown to olive upper-shells (carapaces) without serrated (saw-toothed) rear margins queue up 3- to 4-/8-inch (8- to 12-centimeter) total lengths. Adults retain 11 scutes (plates) on double-hinged brown-yellow lower-shells (plastrons) and 11 marginal scutes on each upper-shell side, whose borders reveal two pairs of musk glands. Dark brown mud turtle heads show up respectively mottled or spotted, mottled or plain and striped twice along the sides in Mississippi, Florida and eastern subspecies.

North American mud turtle habitats trademark 11 scutes on double-hinged brown-yellow lower-shells, 11 scutes per domed brown-olive upper-shell side, four musk glands and subspecies-patterned brown heads.

Mississippi mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum hippocrepis): theTurtleRoom.com @theTurtleRoom, via Facebook Jan. 13, 2015

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Eastern mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum subrubrum); Mattaponi Wildlife Management Area, Caroline County, northeastern Virginia; Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011, 23:45:11: Kelly Geer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/7468016064/

Mississippi mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum hippocrepis): theTurtleRoom.com @theTurtleRoom, via Facebook Jan. 13, 2015, @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1074059155954564

For further information:

"American mud and musk turtles (Kinosternidae)." Pages 121-123. In: Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2nd edition. Volume 7, Reptiles, edited by Michael Hutchins, James B. Murphy, and Neil Schlager. Farmington Hills MI: Gale Group, 2003.

Babcock, Harold L. (Lester). 1919. "Kinosternon subrubrum (Lacépède). Mud Turtle; Fresh-Water Box Terrapin. Plate 22." The Turtles of New England; With Sixteen Plates. Monographs on the Natural History of New England; Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 8, no. 3: 363-367; Plate 22. Boston MA: Boston Society of Natural History.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/12636566
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/turtlesofnewengl00babc#page/363/mode/1up

Bonnaterre, l'Abbé (Pierre Joseph). 1789. "La T. rougeatre 19. T. subrubra. . ." Tableau Encyclopédique et Méthodique des Trois Règnes de la Nature: 27-28. Paris, France: Chez Panckoucke, MDCCLXXXIX.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/39194255

"Eastern Mud Turtle, Kinosternon subrubrum." Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency > Wildlife/Biodiversity > Reptiles > Turtles in Tennessee.
Available @ https://www.tn.gov/twra/wildlife/reptiles/turtle/eastern-mud-turtle.html

"Eastern Mud Turtle Kinosternon subrubrum." Indiana Herp Atlas > Turtles.
Available @ https://inherpatlas.org/species/kinosternon_subrubrum

Gray, J.E. (John Edward). 1856. "On Some New Species of Freshwater Tortoises From North America, Ceylon and Australia: 2. Kinosternon Hippocrepis." The Annals of the Magazine of Natural History, Including Zoology, Botany and Geology. Vol. XVIII (second series), no. 105 (September 1856): 265. London, England: Taylor and Francis.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/18685713

Holbrook, John Edwards, M.D. 1836. "Kinosternon Pennsylvanicum -- Edwards." North American Herpetology; Or, A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States. Vol. I: 127-131. Philadelphia PA: J. Dobson.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4018638

Siebenrock, F. (Friedrich). 1906. "Eine Neue Cinosternum-Art aus Florida: Cinosternum steindachneri sp. n." Eingeg. 19 Juli 1906. Zoologischer Anzeiger. XXX Band, nr. 23 (16 Oktober 1906): 727-728. Leipzig, Germany: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/30259429
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/zoologischeranze301906caru#page/727/mode/1up

theTurtleRoom.com @theTurtleRoom. 13 January 2015. "Kinosternon hippocrepis." Facebook.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1074059155954564

"The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map." The National Gardening Association > Gardening Tools > Learning Library USDA Hardiness Zone > USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.
Available @ https://garden.org/nga/zipzone/2012/

Uetz, Peter. "Kinosternon steindachneri Bonnaterre, 1789." Reptile Database.
Available @ http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Kinosternon&species=subrubrum&search_param=%28%28search%3D%27kinosternon+subrubrum%27%29%29

Uetz, Peter. "Kinosternon subrubrum Siebenrock, 1906." Reptile Database.
Available @ http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Kinosternon&species=steindachneri&search_param=%28%28search%3D%27kinosternon+steindachneri%27%29%29