Testudines Kinosternon flavescens -- Yellow Mud Turtle
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Purple shade indicates vouchered specimens. Light blue (cyan)
shade indicates photographic records. Yellow shade indicates verified
sighting. Slanted hatch indicates pre-1980 records only
NOTE: Not all specimens upon which these maps are based have been verified.
Key Characteristics: Peaked ninth marginal scute distinctly higher than rectangular eighth in adults; triangular pectoral scutes barely in contact; plastron hinged anterior and posterior to abdominal scute.
Similar Species: Eastern mud turtle, common musk turtle.
Subspecies: Variously identified as Illinois mud turtle, K. f. spooneri, or yellow mud turtle, K. f. flavescens.
Description: Medium-sized (up to 15 cm CL) turtle with dark olive, dark brown, or black carapace and lighter plastron. Vertebral scutes 1-4 mushroom-shaped, broadest anteriorly. Male averages larger than female, with divided patch of rough scales behind knee and longer, heavier tail tipped with a claw. Young with prominent black dot on posterior part of large carapacial scutes and ninth marginal scute higher than eighth.
Habitat: Temporary to permanent ponds and backwaters of rivers in sand prairies and deep sand soils.
Natural History: Burrowed in sand most of year, moving to water a few weeks in spring and early summer. Diet consists of invertebrates, tadpoles, fish, plants. Lays 3-7 ellipsoidal, brittle-shelled eggs (ca. 25 x 15 mm) in burrows between mid-June and July. Predators include hognose snakes, raccoons, foxes, and coyotes.
Status: State endangered. Much original habitat along Green, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers has been destroyed by dredging and lock and dam construction. Current threats include lowered water tables and farming (plowing, draining, irrigating). The Lake County specimens may have been introduced.