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I got the best shot that I could. Scooter was in the holding tank while I cleaned his or her home today.
Even though it's a shot from above that's still the entire tail. That's all I ever see of it, usually it's not as visible as it is in this photo.
So what do you think?

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PHRatz

Hate to say this but I can't tell from that photo! Can you turn 'it' upside down and photograph from underneath?
Or, from the side with you pulling the tail down?
It looks a bit too large to be a female's from that shot but then way smaller than a typical male.

>>Hate to say this but I can't tell from that photo! Can you turn 'it' upside down and photograph from underneath?
>>Or, from the side with you pulling the tail down?
>>It looks a bit too large to be a female's from that shot but then way smaller than a typical male.

OHHHH NOOOOOOO!!
LOL you just don't know how hard it was to even get that!

Ok I will keep trying though, it's not a problem to try I am in love with my new camera so using it isn't a big burden on me.
I've tried to get a tail shot with Scooter out of water but that was a complete failure. Maybe if I try while Scooter is outside which makes him/her distracted I could get a good one.
If I do, you'll see it here.
Thanks for trying!
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PHRatz

On second thought I think Scooter must be a girlie turtle. I checked all the photos I could of male yellow muds and they all have those big, prehensile tails that look like fingers. That is what most, if not all of the Kinosternid males have.
I think that I got stumped from the photo since the tail looks larger than all of the red cheeked, white lipped and scorpion mud turtle females that I have had experience with.

>> On second thought I think Scooter must be a girlie turtle. I checked all the photos I could of male yellow muds and they all have those big, prehensile tails that look like fingers. That is what most, if not all of the Kinosternid males have.
>> I think that I got stumped from the photo since the tail looks larger than all of the red cheeked, white lipped and scorpion mud turtle females that I have had experience with.

And this morning I did a web search to look for photos.. didn't find much so I wonder where did you find male photos? I'd love to see some!
I did find the David Kirkpatrick mud/musk article that's been on the web for years & years.
I read the yellow mud portion of his article & he did state that in yellow muds the females often DO have that spike on the end of the tail same as males. He also stated that in some males you'll see the concave plastron as you'd see in so many other species or turtles and tortoise.
Scooter's plastron is as flat as our female sulcata's is. Totally flat no hint at all of concavity. Our male box has enough concavity that you can tell he's male, our Chip had a concave plastron but doesn't now. Once he's healed & the acrylic is removed well..who knows if it will be concave again.
Our female box turtles all have extremely flat plastrons too like Scooter. Our male western painted has only a hint of concavity.. but if you look really hard it is there.

Really the tail you see in that Scooter photo is it, the whole thing. I've tried to pull it away from the body, Scooter pulls it up against his/her behind every time & then it's so short & stubby that I can't grab hold of it when it's pulled up like that.
I know it looks fat but it's short & the only reason I was able to get that shot is because I gave Scooter a bug to eat. Scooter forgot to hide the tail when food was around lol.
Still I will keep trying for a better shot & if I manage to get one I'll post it.
Thanks again for all your input this has been very interesting for me either way.
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PHRatz

when I read that male mud turtles have a concave plastron. Except for really big male K. scorpioides scorpioides from South America, I don't think I have ever seen a male mud turtle that had what I would call a concave plastron. Certainly NOTHING like a male box turtle.

A good source for plastron shots of male K. flavescens is the TERRALOG series of Turtles of the World Vol.2, North America. There is at lest two male yellow muds photographed there that show really big tails. In one case, the tail wraps around and touches the hind feet. Another book is 'Schlamschildkroten' which is an all German book on Kinosternon, Sternotherus, Claudius and Staurotypus turtles.

This is a little male K. baurii from the Everglades. He has a fairly large tail with a nice spine on the end. The female's spines are much smaller. An adult male yellow mud turtle has an even more massive tail than this little guy's though.

Ok so I was outside a little while ago trying to get tail shots when my battery died lol. I have to wait an hour before that thing recharges.

This is frustrating but fun too so I'm going to keep trying.
After the battery died I discovered that if I hold Scooter up in the air head first just like in the book I am looking at now then he/she tends to loosen that tail & I can get a grip on it. That cloaca sure does look pretty far away from the plastron to me. If I were looking at a box or a painted I say this is a boy.

The book.. do you have Pritchard's Encyclopedia of Turtles?
On page 521 there is a photo of 2 muds one is spooneri & one flavescens. The one who's plastron is showing has a tail that looks just like Scooter's. Boy or girl? I dunno it doesn't say in the caption!!
I'll keep trying on the photos unless you have the book & can tell what that is.
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PHRatz

Just checked page 521... that flavescens spooneri on the right is a male. The female is on the left and shows the carapace.
If Scooter's tail looks like that then I would say he is a male after all.

are spooneri. The caption is saying that they (the subspecies spooneri) are hardly different from the parent species flavescens.

>>are spooneri. The caption is saying that they (the subspecies spooneri) are hardly different from the parent species flavescens.

pffft ok that's what I get for scanning it rather than actually reading it. lol
Well, in that case then I think the whole Scooter male/female contraversy is solved. He's the man I've been telling him he is for 6-7 years now.
He's awfully docile for a male but there are always exceptions to every rule.
Thanks so much for all this info because you never know when I might end up with a mud rescue one day, it'll be nice to be able to say one way or another if it's male or female.
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PHRatz

Definatly a female I have 3 males and they all have really long tails. Where my females have the same size tail as yours.
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I am 15 years old and I have over 100 Turtles/Tortoises which 45 of those are different species!
Turtles are like potato chips, you can't have just one.