Arkansas Herpetological Atlas 2019
This species is represented by 283 records from 21 sources: 102 museum (
), 133 literature (
), 0 research (
), and 16 observation (
), with 32 additional Trauth et al. (2004) locality points remaining unsourced (
). It has been museum vouchered for 22 of 75 counties (), with 38 additional counties having other forms of reported occurrence (). Years of collection range from 1894 to present.
This highly aquatic species may occupy most of the larger waterways in the state, except for high gradient streams of the Interior Highlands. It has well-documented occurrence in the South Central Plains and Mississippi Alluvial Plain. Photographic newspaper accounts, circa early 1970s, from Beaver, Carroll County, three records from southcentral Missouri (Daniel and Edmond, 2020), and three Trauth et al. (2004) unsourced locality points in northcentral Arkansas illustrate ascension up the upper White River system. However, an unpublished ANHC report from 1976 of a purported Macrochelys temminckii in a small, rocky stream in Benton County was likely the result of a misidentified Chelydra serpentina. Undocumented observations have been made by experts in Ozark Highland streams of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas in the North Fork, Eleven Point, and Current rivers, and Bryant Creek (J. T. Briggler and K. J. Irwin, pers. comm.). K. J. Irwin observed a courting pair in the Caddo River near Glenwood, Montgomery County (pers. obs.), and received an adult specimen taken by a fisherman from Lake Ouachita, Garland County (K. G. Roberts, private collection, 2019).
