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Atlas / Library / Kinosternidae / Eastern mud turtle
BeginnerDiurnal · active nowCITES II
Kinosternidae

Eastern mud turtle

Kinosternon subrubrumเต่าโคลน

Traceable. The figures above appear in the page we cite, which we opened on 10 Aug 2026. That means you can check them, not that we have confirmed they are right. zillarules.com

Photograph: ecovore · CC BY

Photographed by an observer on iNaturalist and published under a Creative Commons licence; the photographer and the licence are named under the image. It is not an animal of ours, and no animal was handled by us to produce it.

14:00
Day

Drag the sun. Eastern mud turtle is diurnal, so what it is doing changes with the light.

Semi-aquatic · temperateFrom the sheet: 23–26°C

The way of life is written in this sheet, word for word. The climate words summarise the two figures above them, they do not add to them.

CITES II is a global listing and holds in every country. National law is not global, and we hold no national wildlife law for any country, Thailand included. Check your own authority before buying or selling.

Check your setup against this sheet I keep one 123 plants usable with this species
Back to the globe My keep

https://keepr.pet/husbandry/en/kinosternon-subrubrum

‹ All husbandry guides
Temperature23–26 °C
Diet1 days

The numbers

Temperature

152025303540 °C
23–26°Cool side
Warm side: not in our data

The cool side, 23–26°C. This sheet states the cool side only. It gives no warm side or basking figure, so the hot end is not in our data. Same scale on every sheet here, so two species compare by eye.

The sheet statescool 23-26 °C

UVB

Requiredrequired

The sheet statesUVA and UVB is a necessity for a healthy turtle. Indoor turtles require UVB lighting and supplemental heat lights for 10-12 hours a day; any Zilla Fluorescent UVA/UVB bulb; replace bulbs every 6 months

Enclosure
at least a 40-gallon tank for one turtle, 50-100 gallons for the typically larger females

Identity

Family / Order
Kinosternidae / Testudines
Origin
Temperament
Semi-aquatic bottom walker

Enclosure and conditions

Temperature
cool 23–26 °C

What your climate adds

This sheet states a range to hold. Your local climate decides how much work holding it is. Pick the nearest city: nothing is sent anywhere, the choice stays in this browser.

Diet

Feeding rhythm

every 1 dAs the sheet states
28Meals in 28 days

Twenty-eight days, one row. Each band is a meal window.

Why

The windows widen as they go because the interval is a range: four meals after a 10–14 day cycle land anywhere between day 40 and day 56.

The sheet statesThey primarily eat worms, fish, snails, and dark green leafy vegetables; Feed them one protein meal every other day and leafy greens daily

Behaviour and handling

HandlingMay musk; minimal
HousingSolo or size-matched
NoteGood beginner semi-aquatic

Reproduction

Sexing
Male longer tail, larger
Breeding
1–6 eggs on land

When to see a vet

P

Good to know

  • A tiny hardy semi-aquatic turtle that spends real time walking on land.

Common questions

How big does it get?

Small, around 8 to 12 cm, so a modest tank suits it for life.

Does it swim much?

It walks along the bottom more than it swims, so keep the water shallow with plants and branches to climb.

Does it bite?

It can nip if you grab it, and like other mud and musk turtles it reaches backwards, but nothing dangerous.

What does it eat?

Almost any animal food: pellets, snails, worms, insects and small fish.

What it needs

A thermometerbecause temp — cool 23-26 °C
UVB, stated as requiredbecause uvb — UVA and UVB is a necessity for a healthy turtle. Indoor turtles require UVB lighting and supplemental heat lights for 10-12 hours a day; any Zilla Fluorescent UVA/UVB bulb; replace bulbs every 6 months
Not stated: The heat sourcethis sheet names only the cool side: « cool 23-26 °C »
Not stated: The size of the enclosurethis sheet describes the enclosure without a figure: « at least a 40-gallon tank for one turtle, 50-100 gallons for the typically large »

Every line above is deduced from a value this sheet states, and names which one. Nothing here is a general recommendation. What the sheet does not state is listed too, rather than left out: a kit that looks complete is worse than one that names its gap.

Sources

Austin's Turtle Page — mudzillarules.com — lu le 2026-08-04speciesplus.net — lu le 2026-08-08

Others in this group

Red-eared SliderTrachemys scripta elegansmarginatedTestudo marginataYellow-bellied SliderTrachemys scripta scriptaPainted TurtleChrysemys pictaCommon musk turtle (Stinkpot)Sternotherus odoratusMalayan Box TurtleCuora amboinensisChinese Box TurtleCuora flavomarginataEastern Box TurtleTerrapene carolina

What this sheet states

62%
TemperatureHumidityEnclosure sizeActivityOriginDietSourcesUVB

This sheet states 4 of 7 of the fields this product runs on. What is missing turns something off: humidity instrument and audit, enclosure size audit, the diet section. We show the gap rather than fill it with a plausible number.

UVB is measured but does not count: it is absent from 421 of 678 sheets, and on most of them that is not a gap, since a nocturnal snake's sheet has no reason to state a UV index. Counting it would call the library incomplete without cause.