SREL Reprint #2011

Deirochelys reticularia miaria (Western Chicken Turtle)

Kurt A. Buhlmann1 and Tom R. Johnson2

1University of Georgia, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Drawer E, Aiken, South Carolina 29802, USA
2Missouri Department of Conservation, Natural History Section, P. O. Box 180, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0180, USA

Summary: USA: MISSOURI: BUTLER Co: 2.4 km SE jct. State Road EE and Co. Road 269, Big Cane Conservation Area, 90 m elev. 1-2 June 1995. K. A. Buhlmann and T. R. Johnson. CM Photographic Acc. 36014.1-36014.4. Verified by Joseph T. Collins. Two presumed juvenile females, both 3-4 years old (PL 101 and 117 mm), and one 5-year-old mature male (PL 117 mm) captured in a semi-closed canopy, bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) dominated, blackwater wetland. Specimens were released. This species had not been observed in Missouri since 1962 (M. A. Nickerson, pers. obs.) or collected since 1957 (Anderson 1965, The Reptiles of Missouri. Univ. Missouri Press, Columbia. 330 pp.). The western chicken turtle is listed as endangered by the state of Missouri. Historically, chicken turtles were likely common in the bald cypress/bottomland hardwood floodplain swamp forests that have been cleared, ditched, and converted to agriculture, primarily rice farming. Further survey work is needed in the Missouri bootheel region to identify other suitable surviving patches of natural habitat that may contain isolated populations of these turtles.

SREL Reprint #2011

Buhlmann, K.A. and T.R. Johnson. 1995. Deirochelys reticularia miaria (Western Chicken Turtle). Herpetological Review 26:209.

This information was provided by the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (srel.uga.edu).