The Striped Mud Turtle (Kinosternon bauri) in South Carolina, A Confirmation through Multivariate Character Analysis

Abstract

An unusual population of Kinosternon from South Carolina, previously identified as a disjunct population of K. bauri, is morphometrically compared with K. s. subrubrum and K. bauri. Discriminant analyses of shell and cranial characters demonstrate distinct separation between the South Carolina turtles and K. s. subrubrum but indicate extensive overlap between South Carolina turtles and K. bauri. These data confirm the previous taxonomic assignment of the South Carolina population and provide additional K. bauri localities that establish geographic continuity between the South Carolina locality and those that formerly constituted the northern border of the species' range. A discriminant function that separates the species of Kinosternon from South Carolina and Georgia is given for each sex