AQUATIC TURTLES

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Common Mud
Alligator Snapper
Common Musk
Red-eared Slider
Common Map
AQUATIC TURTLES OF KENTUCKY
Smooth Soft-shell
Painted Turtle
Eastern River Cooter
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History and Life

• First turtles appeared about 200 million years
  ago, considerably before dinosaurs
• Have undergone little evolutionary change
• There are about 100 aquatic turtles that live in
  the United States, only about 16 live in Kentucky
• Can live for more than 50 years, average is about
  35 in wild
• Live in almost every type of habitat

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Kentucky Turtles

• Alligator Snapper
• Common Snapper
• Mississippi Map
• False Map
• Ouachita Map
• Common Map
• Midland Painted
• Southern Painted
• Red-eared Slider

• Common Musk
• Eastern Mud
• Mississippi Mud
• Eastern River Cooter
• Hieroglyphic River Cooter
• Midland Smooth Soft- shell
• Eastern Spiny Soft- shell

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Taxonomy

• Kingdom Animalia
• Phylum Chordata
• Subphylum Vertebrata
• Class Reptilia
• Subclass AnapsidaOrder Chelia or
  Testudines
• Family Chelydridae Snapping turtles
• Family Kinosternidae Mud and Musk turtles
• Family Emydidae Sliders and Cooters
• Family Trionychidae Soft-shelled

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Types of Turtles

• Tortoises terrestrial
• Terrapins freshwater
• Turtles used to refer to marine, used
  commonly for all members

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Turtle Anatomy
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Turtle Anatomy

• No teeth, sharp strong jaws and beak
• Scutes of tough keratin cover the surface of the
  bones
• Turtles have about 50 bones
• Shell has hinge between plastron and carapace to
  protect turtle inside

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Family CHELYDRIDAE

• 2 Turtles
• Alligator Snapper Macroclemys temminckii
• Common Snapper Chelydra serpentina

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Common Snapper
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Common Snapper

• Carapace tan to dark brown
• Massive head and powerful jaws
• 3 rows of keels
• Tail as long as carapace
• Up to 45 lbs. in wild, can exceed 75 lbs. in
  captivity

• Diet invertebrates, aquatic plants, fish, birds,
  small mammals
• Likes soft mud bottoms, plenty of vegetation and
  some brackish waters
• Length 10-18 ½ in.
• N.A. Status Common Rockies-east coast

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Common Snapper Breeding

• Mates April to November
• Lays as many as 83 spherical eggs, usually 20-30
• Eggs laid in muskrat lodge
• Females can retain sperm
• Incubation depending on weather 9-18 weeks

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Common Snapper Distribution
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Alligator Snapper
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Alligator Snapping Turtle

• Largest freshwater turtle, record 316 lbs.
• Massive head with strongly hooked beak
• Long tail
• Carapace brown or gray
• 3 prominent keels and extra row of scutes

• Likes deepwater rivers, lakes, some brackish
• Unique structure in mouth, acts as fishing lure
• Diet anything including other turtles
• Length 16-32 in.
• Status VulnerableE. Tex.-Ga.,north to Miss.
  River in Iowa

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Alligator Snapper Breeding

• Lays one clutch between April and June
• 10-52 spherical eggs buried in mud or sand
• Incubation 11 ½ -16 weeks
• Only females leave water to lay eggs

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Alligator Snapper
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Alligator Snapper Distribution
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Family KINOSTERNIDAE

• Common Musk Sternotherus odoratus
• Eastern Mud Kinosternon
  subrubrum subrubrum
• Mississippi Mud Kinosternon subrubrum
• hippocrepis

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Common Musk Turtle
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Common Musk ID

• Smooth, high domed carapace, olive brown to dark
  gray with layer of algae
• 2 light stripes on head
• Femalesshort tail, small head
• Males large, long tail ending in a blunt spine,
  enlarged head, anus posterior to edge of carapace

• Barbels on head and throat, both sexes
• Length 3-5 inches
• Status Commonc. Tex.-Wisconsin, east

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Common Musk Breeding

• Mates February to June
• Females lay several clutches annually
• 1-9 elliptical eggs
• Deposited in tunnels dug by muskrats or in nests
  of alligators, under tree stumps
• Incubation about 9 to 12 weeks

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Common Musk Turtles

• Musky odor released by two glands under the edge
  of carapace, musk turtles smell worse than mud
  turtles
• Nicknames
• Stinking Jim
• Stinkpot

• Live in freshwater and streams, some brackish
  waters
• Mainly in sluggish water with mud bottom and
  plenty of vegetation
• Diet omnivorous, worms, aquatic insects,
  crickets, larvae, and aquatic plants

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Musk Turtle Distribution
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Eastern Mud Turtle
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Eastern Mud

• Carapace olive to dark brown, patternless, smooth
• Dives swiftly at the least sign of danger
• Fresh or brackish water - shallow, slow-moving,
  soft bottom, plenty of vegetation
• Diet prey caught off bottom and aquatic
  vegetation

• Males more aggressive than females over territory
• Musky odor
• Length 3-4 inches
• Status CommonS.E. U.S.

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Eastern Mud Breeding

• Mates March to May
• Several clutches laid annually
• 1-6 elliptical eggs
• Incubation about 100 days
• Deposited in tunnels dug by muskrats or in nests
  of alligators

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Mud Turtle Distribution
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Family EMYDIDAE

• Mississippi Map Graptemys pseudogeographica
  kohni
• False Map Graptemys pseudogeographica pseu
  dogeographica
• Ouachita Map Graptemys pseudogeographica ou
  achitensis
• Common Map Graptemys geographica
• Midland Painted Chrysemys picta picta
• Southern Painted Chrysemys picta dorsalis

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Family EMYDIDAE (cont)

• Red-eared Slider Trachemys scripta elegans
• Hieroglyphic River Pseudemys concinna
  Cooter heiroglyphica
• Eastern River Pseudemys concinna
• Cooter concinna

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Common Map Turtle
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Common Map

• Yellow and olive-brown colored carapace
• Yellow oddly shaped circle behind eyes
• Females are larger, males half their size
• Large ponds, swamps, quiet streams with muddy
  bottoms, abundant aquatic vegetation

• Basks in sun
• Diet females-clams, crayfish, snails, insects,
  some plants
• Length 9-13 inches
• Status CommonNorthern Ala.-north,Eastern
  Nebraska east to Eastern OH.,

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Common Map Breeding

• 2-3 clutches per season
• 3-20 eggs laid early summer
• Males stroke face and neck of females with claws

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Common Map Distribution
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Red-eared Slider

•  
•  
•  
•  

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Red-eared Slider

• Prominent red stripe behind eyes
• Carapace olive to brown with yellow bars and
  stripesCarnivorous young, herbivorous as adults
• Enjoy basking on logs
• Hibernate in colder weather
• Live more than 30 years

• Sluggish water, soft bottoms, dense vegetation
• Diet young-aquatic invertebrates, tadpoles
  adults-plant material
• Dime Store Turtle
• Dont survive to adult
• Length 8-12 inches
• Status Lower riskS. Central-S.E. U.S.

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Slider Breeding

• Females larger than males
• Males stroke face and neck of female with claws
• Mates March to June
• 1-3 clutches, 2-23 oval eggs
• Incubation 2-2 ½ months
• Males mature 2-5 years

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Slider Distribution
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Family TRIONYCHIDAE

• Midland Smooth Trionyx mutica
  muticaSoft-shell
• Eastern Spiny Apalone spinifera
  Soft-shell spinifera

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Spiny Soft-shell
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Spiny Soft-shell

• Yellowish-greenish carapace
• Entire shell feels like sandpaper
• Several large spines or conelike projections
• Nose resembles a snorkle
• Rivers, streams, and large lakes with sandy or
  muddy bottoms
• Diet crayfish, food, aquatic insects

• Can remain submerged for up to five hours using
  either dermal or cloacal respiration
• Capable of exchanging gas through their skin in
  both water and air
• Length 17 inches females, ½ that males
• Status Common but at risk S. Central U.S.

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Spiny Soft-shell Distribution
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Midland Smooth Soft-shell
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Midland Smooth Soft-shell

• Feet of softshells have extensive webbing
• Found in rivers, large streams, and rarely large
  lakes with sandy or muddy bottoms
• Diet insects, worms, snails, clams, frogs, fish,
  young birds, small mammals, algae, and seed
• Length 14 inches or more, males half that
• Status Common/risk

• Gray or brown with dots and dashes on the back
• No bony scutes like other turtles
• Flat and leathery with very flexible edges
• Nose tapers to a point and resembles a snorkle
• NO ridge in each nostril, different from a spiny
  softshell

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Smooth Soft-shell Distribution
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Spiny and Smooth Soft-shell Breeding

• Breed in May and they lay their eggs in June or
  July
• Young hatch in August or September
• Lay the 12 to 30 eggs, ping-pong ball shaped
• Nests are on sandbars
• Eggs often dug up by carnivorous mammals, drown,
  some fish

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Threats

• Most turtles are declining in numbers due to
• Pet Trade
• Organs sold for medicinal purposes worldwide
• Food
• Habitat Loss
• Overabundance of predators such as raccoons

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Solutions

• In the pet trade, it is now illegal to sell a
  turtle if the carapace is less than 4 inches in
  length
• Some turtles are being put on threatened lists
  and being labeled as vulnerable so they can be
  more protected under laws and policies
• Of 270 or more known species, more than 100 are
  considered rare or threatened with extinction

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Problems in Kentucky

• Snapping turtles are a danger to young waterfowl.
• To remove turtles, bait heavy lines with chicken
  gizzards and place baited lines in the shallow
  water areas around the pond. Captured turtles can
  be eaten or relocated.
• Smaller, hard-shell, or slider turtles can be
  captured with a trap. Make a trap place placing a
  box or barrel in your pond. Put a board across
  the top. Turtles will climb onto the board to
  bask in the sun, then fall into the box or
  barrel.

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Research

• Most research done on Sea turtles, not freshwater
• Temperature and Sex Determination in Reptiles
  with Reference to Chelonians David Madge,
  University of London (2000)
• Several places have included turtles in research
  but only in terms of species inventory of a
  specific piece of land
• An Inventory of the Amphibian and Reptile Fauna
  of Ichauway Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research
  Center at Ichauway in Georgia (2001)