Overview
Distribution
Range Description
Sternotherus minor occurs from southwestern Virginia through eastern Tennessee and extreme western North Carolina through most of Georgia, northern peninsular and panhandle Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, and the Pearl River basin of Louisiana.
Sternotherus minor minor occurs on the Atlantic side of the Appalachians in Georgia, in Florida and southeastern Alabama.
Sternotherus minor peltifer ranges from the Cumberland-Appalachian basin of SW Virgina, eastern Tennessee, extreme western North Carolina and NW Georgia through northern and western Alabama, eastern Mississippi and Louisiana.
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National Distribution
United States
Origin: Native
Regularity: Regularly occurring
Currently: Present
Confidence: Confident
Type of Residency: Year-round
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Global Range: Southeastern U.S. Southwestern Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and central Georgia south to central Florida and west to Pearl River system in south-central Mississippi (at Louisiana border) (Ernst and Barbour 1989).
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Distribution: USA (SW Virginia, E Tennessee, Georgia, N/C Florida, Alabama, Mississippi: west to the Pearl River system)
Type locality: "neighborhood of Mobile," Alabama, "Columbus, Georgia," and "New Orleans," Louisiana, USA.; restricted to "Columbus, Georgia," by Schmidt (1953:88).
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Physical Description
Size
Type Information
Collection: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Division of Amphibians & Reptiles
Preparation: Ethanol
Locality: New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, United States, North America
- Syntype: Agassiz, L. 1857. Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America, Volume 1, Part 2, North American Testudinata. 1: 424.
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Ecology
Habitat
Habitat and Ecology
Sternotherus minor inhabits a variety of wetlands; clear waters with sand bottoms and submerged fallen trees and snags, such as spring heads and runs, are preferred, but the species is also known from creeks, rivers, oxbows, swamps and sinkhole ponds (Zappalorti and Iverson 2006, Ernst and Lovich 2009).
Sternotherus minor is mainly carnivorous, feeding on a variety of aquatic invertebrates when young but shifting to a diet dominated by freshwater snails and clams as they grow (Zappalorti and Iverson 2006, Ernst and Lovich 2009).
In ssp. minor, males mature at about three to six years of age at about 5.5-6.0 cm carapace length (CL), and may reach up to 12 cm CL. Females mature at about five to eight years of age at about 7.0-8.0 cm CL; females grow slightly larger than males, reaching 14.5 cm CL. (Zappalorti and Iverson 2006, Ernst and Lovich 2009). No maturity data is available for ssp. peltifer, whose largest recorded individual measured 11.7 cm CL.
Florida females of subspecies minor produce about three (one to five) clutches of about 3.3 (on to five) eggs, for an annual output of 6-12 eggs. Hatchlings measure 22-30 mm CL and about 3 g. Longevity may exceed 20 years; Generation length is unknown (Zappalorti and Iverson 2006, Ernst and Lovich 2009).
Systems
- Terrestrial
- Freshwater
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Comments: Rivers, creeks, spring runs, oxbows, swamps, ponds, shallow lake margins, canals; areas with a soft bottom. Bottom dweller, often near rocks, logs, or plant cover. Climbs into tree branches to bask. Often travels overland. Nests have been found in Florida woods at bases of stumps and logs (Ernst and Barbour 1972).
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Migration
Non-Migrant: No. All populations of this species make significant seasonal migrations.
Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make local extended movements (generally less than 200 km) at particular times of the year (e.g., to breeding or wintering grounds, to hibernation sites).
Locally Migrant: No. No populations of this species make annual migrations of over 200 km.
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Trophic Strategy
Comments: Eats aquatic invertebrates, carrion, small vertebrates, and plant material; may shift from primarily insectivorous diet to primarily mollusk diet with increasing size. May feed on worms and invertebrates on land (Ashton and Ashton 1985, Ernst and Barbour 1972).
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Life History and Behavior
Cyclicity
Life Expectancy
Lifespan, longevity, and ageing
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Reproduction
Eggs laid mostly October to June-July in Florida. Clutch size usually 2-3; usually 3-4 clutches/year in Florida. Eggs hatch in about 3 months. Females sexually mature after 6 years (Etchberger and Ehrhart 1987, Ashton and Ashton 1985), males at 3 years in central Florida. In a northern Florida spring, females matured generally in 7-9 years, males in 4.6-6.6 years (Cox et al. 1991).
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Conservation
Conservation Status
IUCN Red List Assessment
Red List Category
Red List Criteria
Version
Year Assessed
Assessor/s
Reviewer/s
Contributor/s
Justification
Sternotherus minor is a widespread and generally common to extremely abundant small freshwater turtle that inhabits a variety of freshwater habitats, is not specifically exploited or impacted by significant threats, making its conservation outlook Least Concern.
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National NatureServe Conservation Status
United States
Rounded National Status Rank: N5 - Secure
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NatureServe Conservation Status
Rounded Global Status Rank: G5 - Secure
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Trends
Population
Population Trend
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Threats
Threats
Individuals and populations of Sternotherus minor may be impacted by a variety of causes:
Habitat impacts including degradation, pollution and loss, through impoundments and hydrological changes, affects turtles directly as well as their molluscan prey base.
Individual turtles are injured or killed through propeller strike, roadkilled when on nesting excursions, or injured or killed after taking fishermen’s baited hooks.
Sternotherus minor is traded in some numbers as pets; no data is available whether these are wild-collected or captive-bred.
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Management
Conservation Actions
Sternotherus minor is protected from commercial exploitation in Florida, Mississippi, and Tennessee, while personal collection is restricted; the species is not protected or regulated in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, at federal level or under CITES. It is listed in Tier IV - Moderate Conservation Need of the Virginia Wildlife Action Plan.
Sternotherus minor minor occurs in a substantial number of protected springheads and spring runs in Florida, and presumably in other protected areas. The occurrence of peltifer populations in protected habitats remains unconfirmed.
Recommended measures include public awareness and education to reduce wanton destruction of this and other turtles, appropriate management of protected and other suitable habitats, and monitoring of key populations.
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Wikipedia
Loggerhead musk turtle
The loggerhead musk turtle (Sternotherus minor) is a species of turtle native to the United States.
Contents |
Geographic distribution
The loggerhead musk turtle can be found in the states of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee.
Description
It gets its name from its unusually large head, compared to the common musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus). Adults can be 8–13 cm (3-5 inches) in carapace length. Barbels are present on the chin only, not on the throat.[1]
Habitat
They live in clean freshwater habitats.
Subspecies
- Sternotherus minor minor (Agassiz, 1857)
- Sternotherus minor peltifer (Smith & Glass, 1947)
References
- ^ Conant, Roger. 1975. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, Second Edition. Houghton Mifflin. Boston.
- McCoy, C.J., A.V. Bianculli and R.C. Vogt. 1978. Sternotherus minor in the Pascagoula River system, Mississippi. Herpetological Review. 9(3):109.
- Ernst, C. H.; Lovich, J.E. (2009). Turtles of the United States and Canada (2 ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. pp. 519–525. ISBN 978-0-8018-9121-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=nNOQghYEXZMC&lpg=PA37.
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Names and Taxonomy
Taxonomy
Comments: MtDNA data indicate a phylogenetic separation of populations in the northwestern part of the range from those in the southeastern part--mtDNA variation is concordant with the morphological variation used as the basis for the traditionally recognized subspecies minor and peltifer; also, local populations tend to be genetically distinctive (Walker et al. 1995, Walker and Avise 1998).
The genus Sternotherus was merged into the genus Kinosternon by Ernst and Barbour (1989) (based on protein electromorph data of Seidel et al. 1986). This change not adopted in subsequent taxonomic lists (King and Burke 1989, Collins 1990). However, Iverson (1991) evaluated protein and morphological data for kinosternine turtles and concluded that there presently exists no adequate basis for recognizing Sternotherus as a genus distinct from Kinosternon. Nevertheless, Ernst et al. (1994) treated Kinosternon and Sternotherus as distinct genera.
K. depressum has been included in this species by some herpetologists.
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