The semi aquatic Spiny Softshell is characterized by a short tail, an upper shell with flexible, soft edges, a soft lower shell much smaller than the upper shell, limbs with a pattern of dark streaks and spots, and small bumps or tubercles along the front edge of the upper shell. The upper shell is olive to light brown, with patterns varying from all black-edged spots (adult males) to dark indistinct blotches (adult females). The edge of the upper shell has a marginal dark line. The lower shell is white or yellowish. The head, limbs, and tail are white underneath and olive to light brown above. A black-edged yellow line extends through the eye on each side of the head. Spiny Softshells have a tubular snout with round nostrils containing septal projections (ridges extending from the inside midline into the nostril space). Males have longer tails than females, with the anal opening near the tip. Females grow much larger than males.
Adults are normally 125-432 mm (5-17 inches) in carapace length. The largest specimen from Kansas is a female (KU 197330) from Kingman County with a shell length of 523 mm (201⁄2 inches) and a weight of 15.9 kilograms (35 pounds), collected by Richard Keller and Ralph Massoth, Jr., on 10 September 1984. The maximum carapace length throughout the range is 616 mm (21¼ inches) (Powell et al., 2016).
This species is found in rivers, streams, and larger ponds and reservoirs statewide in Kansas but is least abundant on the western plains.
The Spiny Softshell is found in a wide variety of aquatic habitats, ranging from swift-flowing rivers and streams to stillwater oxbows, lakes, and reservoirs. It prefers an area with sandbars or mud flats and bodies of water with soft bottoms. This species is active from March to October, spending the cold winter months buried several centimeters below the mud beneath water. These turtles are active during the day, basking, foraging for food, or resting buried in the mud in water, but there is some evidence that they are also occasionally active at night.
Knight and Collins (1977) observed a Spiny Softshell basking on the steep bank of a backwater of the Republican River in Cheyenne County on 24 May. Capron (1987) estimated 500- 700 Spiny Softshells per river mile in the lower Arkansas River valley.
This species mates during April and May. Courtship is unknown in Kansas but probably resembles that of the Smooth Softshell. Nesting occurs during the day in June and possibly July, the females crawling on land and digging a cavity 101-254 mm (4-10 inches) deep in sand or soft soil. Each female lays 3-32 round, white, hard-shelled eggs, which hatch in the fall. A nest of this species discovered in Marion County on 15 July contained eleven eggs. Capron (1987) reported that this turtle nests during the first two weeks in June in the lower Arkansas River valley. He incubated over 100 eggs of this species, all of which hatched between 10- 15 August. When egg-laying occurs late in the season, the young may stay in the nest for their first winter, emerging the following spring.
Spiny Softshells are carnivorous, eating insects, earthworms, crayfishes, fishes, tadpoles, and frogs. This turtle can swim very fast, easily capturing small fishes (Collins, 1993).
Predators of its eggs are primarily mammals. The young are eaten by fishes, other turtles, wading birds, and snakes. People are the prime predators of adults. Capron (1987) expressed concern over the destruction of nesting habitat for this turtle by off-road vehicles that damage sandbars along the lower Arkansas River.
First reported from Kansas by Cragin (1880) based on observations in Riley or Johnson ("mouth of the Blue river [sic]"), Franklin ("Ottawa"), and Douglas ("Lawrence") counties. The earliest specimen (MCZ 5758) is a juvenile collected at Ellis, Ellis County, by "Watson" and received at the MCZ from the Peabody Museum in 1886. This specimen is a paratype of Apalone spinifera hartwegi.
Cornelius Rogers removed representatives of this form from the Medicine River 1 mile south of Lake City, Barber County, Kansas, on May 27, 1934. It was also taken from a sand-bottomed prairie streamlet 6 miles east of Turon, Reno County, Kansas, on May 25, 1934; and from an algae-filled pool near a stream 2 miles northeast of Cheney, Sedgwick County, Kansas, on the same date.
Spiny Softshells may be taken year-round. The daily creel limit is eight turtles, single species or in combination (with Snapping Turtles and/or Smooth Softshells). The possession limit is three creel limits. A valid fishing license is required (unless exempt). Legal equipment: hand, hook and line, setline, hand dip net, seine, turtle trap, or gig.
Conant and Goin (1948) named UMMZ 95365 Amyda (=Apalone) spinifera hartwegi. An adult male; length of carapace, 168 mm.; collected at Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas, during the end of May 1945, by Robert Young, and secured through the courtesy of Charles E. Burt. Young's field notes state: "The stream it was caught in runs through the southeast part of town and is called the Canal. It was formerly the old Chisholm Creek Bed and runs northwest and southeast and empties into the Big Arkansas River at the south side of Wichita." Two additional specimens of A. s. hartwegi (UMMZ 95363-64) and a specimen of A. mutica (UMMZ 95362) were collected at the same time and place as the type. A. s. hartwegi is no longer recognized. Cochran (1961) noted six paratypes of A. s. hartwegi in the United States National Museum (USNM 55683, 91022, 95301, 100529-30, and 123446)
This species exhibits the same ability to remove oxygen from water as the Smooth Softshell. The Spiny Softshell has an aggressive, nasty temper and will bite if not handled carefully.
Based on a captive specimen, Snider and Bowler (1992) reported a maximum longevity for this turtle of 25 years, two months, and seventeen days.
References
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Taggart, Travis W. 2011. Results of the KHS Spring Field Trip to Chautauqua County. Journal of Kansas Herpetology (38):2-4.
Rohweder, Megan R. 2012. Spatial conservation prioritization of Kansas for terrestrial vertebrates. Thesis. Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas. 151 pp.
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Bass, Neil. 2013. The Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Mitigation Project: For the river, for you, and for herps. Collinsorum 2(1/2):10-11.
Taggart, Travis W. 2013. KHS 2012 Spring Field Trip to Bourbon County State Lake. Collinsorum 2(3/4):3.
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Taggart, Travis W. 2013. KHS 2013 Summer Field Trip to Coldwater Lake, Comanche County. Collinsorum 2(3/4):5.
Taggart, Travis W. 2013. KHS 2013 Fall Field Trip to Butler County State Lake. Collinsorum 2(3/4):6.
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Distler, Donald, Mark E. Eberle, David R. Edds, Keith B. Gido, Stephen G. Haslouer, Donald G. Huggins, Thomas D. Mosher, William J. Stark, Joseph R. Tomelleri, James R. Triplett, and Edward O. Wiley. (Editor). 2014. Kansas Fishes. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence. 542 pp.
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Taggart, Travis W. 2015. Spring Field Trip to the Greenhorn Limestone of Russell County. Collinsorum 4(3):2.
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Russell, Elisabeth. 2023. Habitat associations and fine-scale movements of the Red-spotted Toad (Anaxyrus punctatus) in Kansas and the efficacy of remote telemetry for monitoring small-scale movements. Thesis. Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas. 81 pp.