Creaser’s Mud Turtle

1 Overview

Creaser’s Mud Turtle is a lesser-known species of the family Kinosternidae, with a dark carapace and a paler head. Mud turtles are generally fierce, and Creaser’s Mud Turtle is especially aggressive and territorial. Few are kept in captivity, and it is not very common in the market; price is unknown.

Chinese Name: Creaser’s Mud Turtle

Scientific Name: Kinosternon creaseri

English Name: Creaser’s Mud Turtle

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptilia

Order: Testudines

Superfamily: Kinosternoidea

Family: Kinosternidae

Genus: Kinosternon

Species: Mud Turtle

Subspecies: Creaser’s Mud Turtle

Geographic Distribution: Creaser’s Mud Turtle lives in the northern and central parts of the Yucatán Peninsula.

Appearance: The surfaces on both sides and the bottom of the head are relatively bright. The jaws have black stripes; the limbs are light gray or brown, with no connecting structures on the surface of the hind legs.

Habits: It prefers quiet forests and temporary small mud pools; during storm season it may migrate onto land and seems to spend more time buried in forest humus to estivate.

Diet: Creaser’s Mud Turtle is mainly carnivorous, including insects and snails, but occasionally eats palm fruit.

Reproduction: Oviparous, nesting between September and November in winter. Females go to little-visited spots on both sides of the riverbank to lay eggs, avoiding flood impact; each clutch has 6–29 eggs.

2 Physical Characteristics

Creaser’s Mud Turtle is a small mud turtle with a coffee-brown carapace and yellow head and limbs with some markings. The head is relatively large, and the mouth is hard and powerful, able to prey on shelled foods. The webbing is small, so its swimming ability is not strong.

The carapace length of Creaser’s Mud Turtle is about 12.1 cm and is elliptical. The highest point is in the rear half of the carapace center, at an almost vertical angle (the rear carapace outline). Adults have a faint vertebral keel at the center of the back; juveniles have a vague lateral vertebral keel on each side. The 1st vertebral scute is about equal in width and length, or slightly longer than wide; the 2nd–4th are wider than long; the 5th is relatively small, nearly equal in length and width. The 10th and 11th marginal scutes are slightly higher than the preceding nine. The bottom of the plastron has a hinged lobe at front and back, both long and wide, allowing complete closure.

The rear hinge lobe has no notch at the end. The front hinge lobe is longer than the abdominal scute but slightly shorter than the rear one; the gular scute is about half the length of the front hinge lobe. The axillary and inguinal scutes meet exactly on the bridge. The plastron and bridge are pale yellow with black seam lines between scutes. The large head has a slightly protruding snout and a hooked, powerful upper jaw; the head and neck are usually coffee-brown or black with fine, bright spots, and the surfaces on both sides and the bottom of the head are relatively bright. The jaws have black stripes; the limbs are light gray or brown, with no connecting structures on the surface of the hind legs.

3 Care & Husbandry

Mud turtles generally like meat, and Creaser’s Mud Turtle is no exception; its food choices are diverse, and when food is scarce it will also eat carrion and plant matter.

Care: Creaser’s Mud Turtle is a carnivore but occasionally eats plants in nature, such as palm seeds, leaves, petals, and various algae. Animal foods mainly include snails, insects, mollusks, crustaceans, amphibians, and dead fish. It is easily caught on fishhooks baited with animal liver, grasshoppers, worms, or raw dough. In nature it seems to play the role of a cleaner—on land it burrows into livestock dung to eat undigested forage, perhaps searching for insects.

Habitat: Creaser’s Mud Turtle spends more time in slow or stagnant lakes, such as swamps and mud flats. Soft sandy or silty bottoms are ideal. It also appears in wet grasslands and enters somewhat brackish pools. In Virginia, its active period is from late March (after hibernation) to October. It is aquatic but also spends some time on land, though not to bask.

4 Habitat & Environment

Creaser’s Mud Turtle is somewhat particular about its environment. Generally it is not a strong swimmer; it prefers to bask in warm places and, in the hot summer, hides in mud to estivate. It is a turtle suited to life on land.

Creaser’s Mud Turtle lives in the dry regions of the Yucatán Peninsula, preferring quiet forests and temporary small mud pools. During storm season it may migrate onto land and seems to spend more time buried in forest humus to estivate.

Females from the Yucatán region have a broader rear hinge lobe, noticeably larger than those from Quintana Roo and Campeche Bay, while males have a longer plastron and abdominal seam line. In addition, individuals from Quintana Roo generally have a darker carapace, with the neck and sides of the head usually pale yellow.

Also, Creaser’s Mud Turtles from the Yucatán region have deep yellow markings on the neck, sides of the head, and front leg surfaces, and a relatively brighter carapace. Thus regional differences do exist. Duellman collected two specimens in 1965, one with a light brown carapace, pale cream plastron, and light gray-brown limbs and head—perhaps all depending on their habitat environment.

5 Feeding Requirements

Creaser’s Mud Turtle is an omnivore centered on meat; when food is short it also eats fruit. In captivity, choose foods carefully to ensure variety, nutrition, and reasonable supplementary feeding.

Creaser’s Mud Turtle is omnivorous. To raise a beautiful turtle, don’t skimp—feed good pellets. Besides pellets, shrimp are great for color, containing natural pigments and much loved by turtles; give some appropriately, but not long-term: (1) nutrition becomes unbalanced—shrimp are calcium-rich but one-sided in other nutrients; (2) it easily causes digestive disease, since raw food carries various bacteria the gut may not handle in excess. Small fish, bloodworms, organ meat, beef, insects, and snails can also be given in moderation. In short, dietary variety is very important.

One point worth mentioning: mealworms (bread worms) are best not fed to turtles unless you raise many and have the white freshly molted ones daily; otherwise avoid them. Although rich in protein and fat and cheap, their outer shell is hard to digest, and a turtle’s digestion is not as good as a bird’s or lizard’s. Other insects like crickets, grasshoppers, and dragonflies can be fed if available, but not to hatchlings, whose guts are fragile—hatchlings should just eat pellets, which are safe and nutritious. The best feeding mix is pellets as staple (like rice for us) with meat and such as supplements.