Eastern Musk Turtle Sternotherus odoratus. Reptile. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.

Complete Guide To The Eastern Musk Turtle

ByChristine Species Guides

Eastern Musk Turtle

Eastern Musk Turtle Images

How To Identify Eastern Musk Turtles

  • Eastern Musk Turtles grow to about 5.375 inches (13.7 cm) in carapace length.
  • They have smooth, dark brown, highly domed, oval shells that are usually covered with a thick layer of algae.
  • Their dark heads have:
    • Two thin stripes running from their noses to their necks.
      • One stripe runs above their eyes, the other below them.
    • Two pairs of short barbels on their chins and throats.
  • Eastern Musk Turtles’ tails vary by sex.
    • Male Eastern Musk Turtles have long tails that extend beyond their shells and end with a sharp, horny nail.
    • Female Eastern Musk Turtles have much shorter and skinnier tails that lack the hardened point (Behler and King 2020).

How To Find Eastern Musk Turtles

  • Eastern Musk Turtles live in the Piedmont area of North Carolina and are fairly common but not often seen.
    • These turtles are highly aquatic and spend most of their lives underwater, often hidden within submerged vegetation or camouflaged by thick layers of algae that coat their shells.
      • They only rarely come completely out of the water to bask. More usually, they may float near the surface with only the top curve of their shells out of water.
    • Look for Eastern Musk Turtles in quiet, shallow ponds and lakes with soft, muddy bottoms.
      • They are also most active at night (Tyning 1990), so early morning or immediately after sunset are the best times to find them in the wild.

How Eastern Musk Turtles Survive The Winter

  • Cold winter temperatures and ice formation challenge all wild animals, including freshwater turtles like Eastern Musk Turtles.
  • While North Carolina winters aren’t as severe as those farther north, Eastern Musk Turtles must still endure cold—often below freezing—temperatures, without starving or freezing to death.
    • All turtles are cold-blooded or “ectothermic” animals, which means their body temperatures shift to match the temperatures of their environments. In the case of aquatic turtles like the Eastern Musk Turtle, this means that a turtle’s body temperature matches that of the water in which they live at any given time.
    • Additionally, all reptiles must breathe air into their lungs to survive.
      • During the summer months, turtles surface, stick their heads out of the water, and take one or more breaths. Then they submerge and swim around under water until it’s time to breathe again.
    • During the winter, cold water temperatures cause Eastern Musk Turtles’ metabolic rate and oxygen needs to decrease.
      • This means the turtles don’t need as much oxygen as they do when they are very active and in warmer water as during summer.
    • All freshwater turtles in North Carolina react to cold water temperatures during winter by decreasing their activity, metabolic rate, and oxygen demand, but Eastern Musk Turtles go a step further.
      • Despite being mostly covered by a hard, thick, impermeable shell, Eastern Musk Turtles can absorb some oxygen directly through their skin.
      • Several adaptations help Eastern Musk Turtles absorb oxygen especially well, as compared to some other freshwater turtle species:
        • Small Size: Eastern Musk Turtles weigh approximately 100 g (Jackson 2013) so has a lot of surface area exposed to the oxygen diffused in water relative to its weight.
        • Small Plastrons: The bottom half of a turtle’s shell is called the “plastron”. The plastron of Eastern Musk Turtles is fairly small and leaves a fair amount of skin exposed to water.
        • Skin Folds: Eastern Musk Turtles have skin folds, which also increases the surface area through which oxygen can diffuse (Jackson 2013).
      • These adaptations make Eastern Musk Turtles champion breath-holders compared to their cousin freshwater turtles, like the Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta) and the Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina).
    • Because the adaptations that help Eastern Musk Turtles survive winter rely on exposure of their skin to water, these turtles rest underwater on the substrate, instead of burying themselves in mud Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta).

What Do Eastern Musk Turtles Eat?

  • Eastern Musk Turtles are omnivorous and juvenile turtles are more carnivorous than adults.
  • Food includes:
    • Aquatic vegetation and algae
    • Aquatic insects like:
      • Dragonfly larvae
      • Damselfly larvae
      • Beetles
    • Snails
    • Worms
    • Clams
    • Tadpoles
    • Crayfish (occasionally)
  • Hatchlings also eat carrion, like dead fish.

What Eats Eastern Musk Turtles

  • Eastern Musk Turtles are most vulnerable to predators as eggs and hatchlings, but adults make tasty meals for some powerful predators as well.
  • Egg predators include:
    • Birds like:
    • Mammals like:
      • Striped Skunks (Mephites mephites)
      • Raccoons (Procyon lotor)
      • Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
      • Minks (Mustela vison)
    • Snakes like:
  • Eastern Musk Turtle hatchlings are tiny, with correspondingly thin shells, so are eaten by:
  • Adult Eastern Musk Turtles grow hard, thick shells that many predators lack the bite strength to crunch through.
    • Unlike their terrestrial turtle cousin, the Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina), Eastern Musk Turtles can withdraw into their shells but lack the ability to close up their shells and barricade themselves inside.
    • Eastern Musk Turtles have hinged plastrons (the lower half of the shell) but the plastrons themselves are small and fail to cover the turtle’s bodies.
    • So their soft insides remain exposed and vulnerable, even when they withdraw into their shells.
    • Therefore, adult Eastern Musk Turtles fall prey to two kinds of predators:
  • But Eastern Musk Turtles aren’t entirely defenseless against their predators.
    • Eastern Musk Turtles manufacture a smelly, noxious substance in two pairs of musk glands beneath the edge of their carapaces (the top half of their shells)
    • When threatened, the turtles secrete the substance, which may deter predators with sensitive noses from attacking or continuing in-progress attacks.
    • If smelling remarkably bad fails to protect them, Eastern Musk Turtles bite to defend themselves.
      • This species is notoriously bad-tempered and bite readily and repeatedly when harassed.
      • They have long necks that reach their hind limbs (Behler and King 2020) and don’t hesitate to snap at attackers with their sharp, horny beaks.

Eastern Musk Turtle Mating And Reproduction

  • Eastern Musk Turtles mate underwater and nest from early spring to early summer.
  • Female Eastern Musk Turtles always lay their three to five brittle, white eggs in soft dirt or leaf litter near water.
  • Incubation takes nine to twelve weeks (Behler and King 2020) and (as in Snapping Turtles) the sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature within the nests.
    • In most turtles, males and females develop in response to single temperature ranges.
    • But in Eastern Musk Turtles, females develop within two temperature ranges:
      • 74° – 76° F (23° – 24° C) and
      • 78° – 82° F (25.6 – 27.8° C)
    • Males develop in between these two ranges, at around 77° F (25° C) (Tyning 1990).
  • Eastern Musk Turtle hatchlings are only about 0.8 inches (21 mm long) (Martof et al. 1990).
    • They stay in shallow water and resemble pebbles when motionless.

Eastern Musk Turtle Classification

  • This turtle is sometimes called the Stinkpot—an inelegant and insulting name for a really cool turtle.

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Reptilia

Order

Testudines

Family

Kinosternidae (Musk and Mud Turtles)

Genus

Sternotherus odoratus

Species

S. odoratus

Binomial Name

Sternotherus odoratus

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Christine
Christine is the creator and author of NowIWonder.com, a website dedicated to the animals and plants that share our world, and the science that helps us understand them. Inspired by lifelong exploration and learning, Christine loves to share her knowledge with others who want to connect with wild faces and wild spaces.
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