Kinosternon subrubrum
The eastern mud turtle or common mud turtle is a common species of turtle in the family Kinosternidae. The species is endemic to the United States. There are two recognized subspecies.

No machine-readable author provided. Hhmb assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Eastern mud turtlePBDB
- Sits inside
- KinosternonPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cryptodira
- Life habit
- aquaticPBDB, for Cryptodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Cryptodira
Time the record covers
At least 1.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.
3 occurrences of Kinosternon subrubrum on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3 occurrences- Pliocene21%
- Pleistocene45%
- Holocene33%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Kinosternon subrubrum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Kinosternon subrubrum and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Kinosternon subrubrum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
107 taxa- Agkistrodon2 sites
- Alligator mississippiensis2 sites
- Chelydra serpentina2 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus2 sites
- Procyon lotor2 sites
- Rana2 sites
- Aenocyon dirus1 site
- Ambystoma tigrinum1 site
- Amia calva1 site
- Amphiuma means1 site
- Anas platyrhynchos1 site
- Baiomys1 site
- Bensonomys stirtoni1 site
- Blarina brevicauda1 site
- Borophagus hilli1 site
- Bovidae1 site
- Bufo1 site
- Bufo terrestris1 site
- Bufo woodhousei1 site
- Buisnictis schoffi1 site
- Camelidae1 site
- Canis familiaris1 site
- Canis rufus1 site
- Coluber constrictor1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Kinosternon subrubrum, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
3 references- Faunal remanis from Mixon's Hammock, Okefenokee swamp1
- The late Pleistocene herpetofauna of Devil's Den Sinkhole, Levy County, Florida1
- Geographical distribution and osteological variation in fossil and Recent specimens of two species of Kinosternon (Testudines)1
Each of the 3 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Kinosternon subrubrum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- No machine-readable author provided. Hhmb assumed (based on copyright claims).
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Structured light scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Kinosternon subrubrum · zmuc:rept:R2414
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itKinosternon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bonnaterre 1788)