THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Testudines    Kinosternidae  

Yellow Mud Turtle
Kinosternon flavescens (Agassiz, 1857)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.12.13.09.28.35)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.58 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Arizona Colorado Illinois Iowa Kansas Missouri Nebraska New Mexico Oklahoma Texas

First instance(s) of published English names:
Yellowish Mud Turtle (Platythyra flavescens: Cooper, James G. 1869. The fauna of California and its geographical distribution. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 4():61-81); Yellow Mud Turtle (Cinosternum flavescens: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1922. An annotated catalogue of the amphibians and reptiles of Bexar County, Texas. Bulletin Scientific Society of San Antonio (4):1-31); Yellow-necked Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens: Van Denburgh, John. 1922. The Reptiles of Western North America: An Account of the Species Known to Inhabit California and Oregon, Washinton, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, British Columbia, Sonora, and Lower California. Volume I. Lizards. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco. 556pp.); Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens flavescens: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.); Illinois Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens spooneri: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1857 Agassiz, Louis. Contributions to the Natural History of the United States of America. Volume 1. Little, Brown & Company, Boston, Massachusets. 452pp.
1951 Smith, Philip W. A new frog and a new turtle from the western Illinois Sand Prairies. Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 9:189-199
1978 Seidel, Michael E. Kinosternon flavescens. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (216):1-4
1982 Dodd, C. Kenneth, Jr. A controversy surrounding an endangered species listing: The case of the Illinois mud turtle. Smithsonian Herpetological Information Service 55:1-22
1982 Houseal, T. W., J. W. Bickham, and M. D. Springer. Geographic variation in the Yellow Mud Turtle, Kinosternon flavescens. Copeia 1982(3):567-580
1984 Bickham, J. W., M. D. Springer, and B. J. Gallaway. Distributional survey of the Yellow Mud Turtle (Kinosternon flavescens) in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri: A proposed endangered species. Southwestern Naturalist 29(1):123-132
1984 Berry, James F. and Cynthia M. Berry. A re-analysis of geographic variation and systematics in the Yellow Mud Turtle Kinosternon flavescens (Agassiz). Annals of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 53(7):185-206
1991 Collins, Joseph T. Viewpoint: A new taxonomic arrangement for some North American amphibins and reptiles Herpetological Review 22(2):42-43
1997 Starkey, David E. Molecular systematics and biogeography of the New World turtle genera Trachemys and Kinosternon. Dissertation. Texas A&M, College Station, Texas.. 149pp.
2001 Serb, Jeanne M., C. A. Phillips, and John B. Iverson. Molecular phylogeny and biogeography of Kinosternon flavescens based on complete mitochondrial control region sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 18:149-162
2014 Crother, Brian I. The bold taxonomic hypotheses of Collins (1991): 23 years later. Herpetological Review 45(2):268-272

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Sunday 27 April 2025 11:55 CT