Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My husband and I were out earlier today and found a small turtle in the middle of the road. We didn't want it to get run over so we took it into the car to release near our home. Can anyone help identify what species and sex it is? Also is it a type that would make a good pet?

Thanks in advance!

ok didn't realize how bad those pictures were - here are a couple better ones *I hope*

Did you find it in Florida? Looks like a striped mud (Kinosternon baurii) to me. I haven't kept that species, but kinosternids in general are pretty easy captives.

Yes it was found just outside Orlando Fl. I had looked online and thought it might be a striped mud. I *think* it's female, but still not totally sure. Any advice on food amd habitat for keeping it? Right now we have her in a small terrarium with about 1/2 inch deep water and a ramp to a raised flat area for her. We bought some small turtle food pellets too until we could get a better idea what to feed her.

Thanks,

Rebecca

Yes it was found just outside Orlando Fl. I had looked online and thought it might be a striped mud. I *think* it's female, but still not totally sure. Any advice on food amd habitat for keeping it? Right now we have her in a small terrarium with about 1/2 inch deep water and a ramp to a raised flat area for her. We bought some small turtle food pellets too until we could get a better idea what to feed her.

Thanks,

Rebecca

Rebecca,

You're probably right that your turtle is a female, but "she" is still immature and could surprise you when she gets older.

Your tank sounds like a pretty good setup, but she could use a little deeper water- deep enough that she can totally submerge herself but shallow enough that she doesn't have to swim to reach the surface is ideal. A 'cave' that she can hide in will help her feel more secure; it doesn't matter whether this is made from rocks, cast resin, or wood. Kinosternids are pretty strongly aquatic, so more water area than land area is best. Turtles are messy, so good filtration and frequent water changes are crucial.

A ten gallon tank will work for one adult turtle, but a twenty or twenty-nine gallon would be better. Obviously the footprint of the tank is more important than the height.

Some people believe kinosternids need UV light and others disagree; I provide it to mine just to be on the safe side. You can use an aluminum clamp-lamp to hold the bulb; these are much cheaper at hardware stores than at pet stores.

Turtle pellets are a fine basic diet. You can supplement the pellets with earthworms, snails, small crayfish, live or frozen/thawed whole fish or shrimp, etc. Some kinosternids will also eat vegetables; it just varies from individual to individual.

If you buy feeder fish, avoid goldfish, as they are not very nutritious and often have been treated with potentially toxic color-enhancers. Guppies, rosy reds, and bait minnows are fine, but they should be fattened up on a good flake food for a couple days prior to being fed to your turtle; they probably have not eaten since they left the fish farm and are consequently not very nutritious.

Good luck and keep us updated!

Florida musk have the pronounced stripes on their face. I didn't see any stripes on the carapace so it isn't a 3 stripe(striped) mud kinosternon baurii. Also it seems to only have 1 hinge on the upper portion of the plastron by the front legs. muds have 2 hinges 1 by each pair of legs.

It's not a Sternotherus. The facial striping pattern is different, and the large plastron with triangular pectoral scutes and no non-keratinized skin between scutes is pure Kinosternon; the second hinge is just difficult to see. You can see faint carapacial stripes in the second photo, second post.

I didn't notice the second set at first but I to agree with K.baurii

So after a couple of days we decided to let her go back into the wild. She wasn't interested in packaged food and only wanted tiny snails which were difficult to find. We figured she was much better suited to go back to the closest water to where we found her. She was fun to have for a while I think we are going to look around in pet stores and see if we can find a nice captive bred turtle (maybe a slider or painted) that will be more adapted to being around people and eating packaged turtle food...

Rebecca