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Overland Movement by an Eastern Musk Turtle (Sternotherus Odoratus)

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Overland Movement by an Eastern Musk Turtle (Sternotherus Odoratus) Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 775-776 (2021) (published online on 16 May 2021) Overland movement by an eastern musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) David C. Seburn1,* and Mackenzie Burns1 The eastern musk turtle (Sternotherus odoratus were approximately 280 m to the east of the turtle Latreille in Sonnini & Latreille, 1801) is a freshwater (Fig. 1). The intervening habitat between the turtle and turtle native to eastern North America that is rarely found the waterbodies was a mixture of old field and open far from water (Ernst and Lovich, 2009). In one radio- woods. tracking study, none of the 17 eastern musk turtles were It is uncertain why the eastern musk turtle was on found on land (Wilhelm and Plummer, 2012). Home the road. It could have been moving from the river to ranges of eastern musk turtles are typically confined to the wetland (or vice versa). Such an inter-waterbody one body of water (Ernst and Lovich, 2009). Eastern movement would be at least 460 m. The use of multiple musk turtles are commonly described as “a highly aquatic wetlands by eastern musk turtles has been reported, turtle that seldom wanders far from water” (Mitchell, but such wetlands are typically less than 100 m apart 1994). They experience high evaporative water loss (Attum et al., 2013). The seasonal drying of wetlands rates compared to many other turtle species (Ernst, can cause turtles to move to other wetlands, however, 1968; Murphy et al., 2016) and this likely explains at eastern musk turtles are more likely to remain in drying least part of the lack of terrestrial movements. Given wetlands than other turtle species (Gibbons et al., 1983) their highly aquatic nature, observations of eastern and the maximum observed terrestrial movement from musk turtles away from water are of interest to better a seasonal wetland was only 48.7 m (Buhlman and understand the spatial ecology of this species. Here we Gibbons, 2001). It is unknown if the wetland to the report an observation of an eastern musk turtle on land west was drying up in early June, however, the total away from any waterbody. precipitation was above average in April and May On 15 June 2018, while conducting a survey of (165.0 mm vs. 154.8 mm) at the Ottawa International turtle road mortality, we encountered a dead eastern Airport, 65 km away (Environment Canada, 2021). It musk turtle along a paved, two-lane road in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada. The location of the turtle (45.0342°N, -76.3895°W ± 6 m) was determined with a handheld Garmin eTrex GPS. The body of the turtle was in poor condition and could not be sexed, but it was approximately 9 cm plastron length indicating it was an adult (Ernst and Lovich, 2009). There were no waterbodies within view of the road, but subsequent mapping of the observation using QGIS version 3.4 (QGIS Development Team 2021) indicated the turtle was between two waterbodies. An approximately 3 ha wetland was roughly 180 m to the west of the turtle, while the Clyde River and associated riparian wetlands Figure 1. Location of eastern musk turtle (red point) found 1 Canadian Wildlife Federation, 350 Michael Cowpland Drive, dead on a road in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada, on 15 June Ottawa, Ontario K2M 2W1 Canada. 2018. Wetland edges highlighted in blue. The eastern musk * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] turtle was ~180 m from the wetland to the west, and ~280 m to © 2021 by Herpetology Notes. Open Access by CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. the wetland and river to the east. 776 David C. Seburn & Mackenzie Burns seems unlikely that an eastern musk turtle from the river Buhlmann, K.A., Gibbons, J.W. (2001): Terrestrial habitat use would trek overland 460 m to a small wetland. A shorter by aquatic turtles from a seasonally fluctuating wetland: path would have been from the western branch of the implications for wetland conservation boundaries. Chelonian Conservation and Biology 4(1): 115–127. river and south to the wetland (Fig. 1). The shorter path Cagle, F.R. (1937): Egg laying habits of the slider turtle (Pseudemys would also have avoided a small hill between the road troostii), the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), and the musk turtle and the small wetland. The habitat in the small wetland (Sternotherus odoratus). Journal of the Tennessee Academy of is also unlikely to have been superior to the diverse Science 12(1): 87–95. aquatic habitats available along the river. Clark, W.S. (1982): Turtles as a food source of nesting Bald Eagles The turtle could have been making a limited terrestrial in the Chesapeake Bay region. Journal of Field Ornithology movement from the wetland or the river. Such a 53(1): 49–51. Edmonds, J.H. (1998): Population ecology of the Stinkpot Turtle movement could have been for nesting purposes (if the (Stenotherus odoratus) in Georgian Bay, Ontario. Unpublished turtle was a gravid female), because the turtle was found MSc, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada. in June, the typical nesting season for turtles in this area. Environment Canada (2021): Canadian Climate Normals 1981– While this is theoretically possible, eastern musk turtles 2010. Government of Canada. https://climate.weather.gc.ca/ typically nest within 20 m of water (Cagle, 1937; Ernst, climate_normals/results_1981_2010_e.html 1986; Edmonds, 1998) with a maximum known distance Ernst, C.H. (1968): Evaporative water-loss relationships of turtles. of 45 m from water (Ernst and Lovich, 2009). Journal of Herpetology 2(3/4): 159–161. Ernst, C.H. (1986): Ecology of the turtle, Sternotherus odoratus, We cannot rule out the possibility that the eastern musk in southeastern Pennsylvania. Journal of Herpetology 20(3): turtle did not get to the road on its own. Shells of eastern 341–352. musk turtles have been found in a number of Bald Eagle Ernst, C.H., Lovich, J.E. (2009): Turtles of the United States and (Haliaeetus lucocephalus) nests (Bendell, 1959; Clark, Canada. Second edition. Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Johns 1982), so it is possible that a predator dropped the Hopkins University Press. eastern musk turtle on the road or a scavenger left the Gibbons, J.W., Greene, J.L., Congdon, J.D. (1983): Drought-related dead turtle on the road. responses of aquatic turtle populations. Journal of Herpetology 17(3): 242–246. Eastern musk turtles have been documented to move Laverty, J.F., Korol, B., Litzgus, J.D. (2016): Measuring the effects more than 1.5 km along waterways (Laverty et al., of water-based recreation on the spatial ecology of Eastern Musk 2016), but overland movements appear to be quite rare. Turtles (Sternotherus odoratus) in a provincial park in Ontario, The longest documented overland movement we have Canada. Copeia 104(2): 440–447. found is an adult eastern musk turtle “found abroad in Mitchell, J.C. (1994): The Reptiles of Virginia. Washington, USA, a hardwood forest about 396 m from the nearest known Smithsonian Institution Press. body of water” in North Carolina (Palmer and Braswell, Murphy, C.M., Tuberville, T.D., Maerz, J.C., Andrews, K.M. (2016): Evaporative water loss rates of four species of aquatic 1995). Unfortunately, no other details are available on turtles from the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States. this observation. It remains unclear why and how often Journal of Herpetology 50(3): 457–463. lengthy overland forays are made but we encourage Palmer, W.M., Braswell, A.L. (1995): Reptiles of North Carolina. researchers to report terrestrial observations away from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, University of North Carolina water to better understand the spatial ecology of eastern Press. musk turtles. QGIS Development Team (2021): QGIS Geographic Information System, version 3.4. Open Source Geospatial Foundation Project. Acknowledgements. We acknowledge the support of the Wilhelm, C.E., Plummer, M.V. (2012): Diet of radiotracked Rogers Foundation for funding our turtle conservation work. Musk Turtles, Sternotherus odoratus, in a small urban stream. We are grateful to Damien Mullin for providing a difficult to Herpetological Conservation and Biology 7(2): 258–264. locate reference and to Jolene Laverty and Brian Butterfield for providing comments on the manuscript. References Attum, O., Cutshall, C.D., Eberly, K., Day, H., Tietjen, B. (2013): Is there really no place like home? Movement, site fidelity, and survival probability of translocated and resident turtles. Biodiversity and Conservation 22(13/14): 3185–3195. Bendell, J.F. (1959): Bony shells of musk turtles in nest of Bald Accepted by Eric Munscher Eagle. Canadian Field-Naturalist 73: 131–132..
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