A widespread and generally common species. Depending on site and habitat type, Spiny Softshells constitute between less than 1% to 67% numerically of all turtles encountered in turtle community surveys (reviews in Ernst et al. 1994, Ernst and Lovich 2009).

Apalone spinifera emoryi was considered common in the Rio Florida and Lago Toronto in Coahuila, Mexico, in 1958 (Williams et al. 1960). The subspecies emoryi has apparently a substantial capacity for establishing itself in new areas, if its occurrence in the Colorado rivers system and the Cuatro Cienegas basin are indeed based on introductions.

Apalone spinifera atra: While quantitative data are not available, Apalone s. atra was not rare in the 1950s: ‘the heads of several [A.s.] ater could usually be seen at dusk by scanning the surface of the pond with binoculars’ (Webb and Legler 1960). No recent population data have been made widely available. In recent years it was considered a rare species, Smith and Smith (1979) considered it was extinct due to hybridization, but Flores-Villela (pers. comm. 2005) collected the species around 1990.

The morphological continuity between ater and emoryi after some generations in sympatry have variously been interpreted as intergradation between subspecies of Apalone spinifera, or as hybridisation between two species that were not reproductively isolated (Webb and Legler 1960, Webb 1962, Smith and Smith 1979, McGaugh 2008, McGaugh and Janzen 2008, McGaugh et al. 2008).

Stable