Species
Stripe-necked musk turtle
Sternotherus peltifer
A small musk turtle of northwest Georgia's streams, marked by dark stripes along its neck.
Photo Tayton Alvis (opens in a new tab) / iNaturalist, CC BY 4.0 (opens in a new tab)
At a glance
- Size
- Shell usually 8 to 12 cm long
- Habitat
- Clear, rocky streams and rivers
- Diet
- Snails, insects and crayfish
- In Georgia
- Streams of northwest Georgia
- Rabies vector
- No
Identification
- Key marks
- Brown, keeled shell; dark stripes along the side of the neck
- Told apart from
- Loggerhead musk turtle, which has spots rather than stripes on the head and neck
- Where to look
- On stream bottoms among rocks
Behaviour
Like its relatives it walks along stream bottoms rather than swimming, hunting snails and insects among rocks. It spends little time basking out of the water.
Why they matter
It is one of the small predators that keep snail and insect numbers in balance in clear upland streams.
Reproduction and lifecycle
Nest — Shallow nest in soil near water
Eggs — Usually 1 to 4
Incubation — About 70 to 100 days
Hatchlings — Tiny, keeled
Maturity — At several years
Lifespan — Decades
Living around people
- Silt from construction and farming fills the spaces between rocks where these turtles feed.
Misconceptions
- All small dark turtles are the same. Georgia has several musk and mud turtles, each tied to its own kind of water.
Related species
Seasonal activity
When this species is breeding, and when there are nests on the ground. Mowing during the shaded months is how most nests are found.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breeding | Jan: no | Feb: no | Mar: no | Apr: no | May: no | Jun: no | Jul: no | Aug: no | Sep: no | Oct: no | Nov: no | Dec: no |
| Active nests | Jan: no | Feb: no | Mar: no | Apr: no | May: no | Jun: no | Jul: no | Aug: no | Sep: no | Oct: no | Nov: no | Dec: no |
| Notes | Inactive | Inactive | Becoming active | Courtship | Nesting | Nesting | Feeding | Hatching | Hatchlings emerge | Feeding | Slowing down | Inactive |
Where it lives
Recorded in 5 states and provinces. Each one links to the other animals there, and to the rehabilitators licensed for them.
United States
If you found one
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