Peter A. Scott

The Southeastern United States is a region marked by incredibly high biodiversity, such that the North American Coastal Plain was recently classified as global biodiversity hotspot. Turtles are no exception to this trend. In fact, with the advent of high-throughput sequencing, biologists have discovered multiple cryptic species of turtles in the Southeast US in the past 10 years suggesting there is still much to learn about the turtles of the region. A recent review of the literature found that small species of turtle have received significantly less research attention than larger species. A case and point to this trend is exemplified by the mud turtles of the genus Kinosternon. These turtles are marked by their diminutive stature, and the genus is considered one of the top three least studied in North America. What's more is that the taxonomy of the group has been in flux for over forty years. We aim to employ robust phylogenomic methods coupled with Bayesian analyses and species delimitation approaches to disentangle the evolutionary history of this group. Preliminary mitochondrial sequencing data suggest cryptic genetic divergence within the genus. We collected tissue from nearly 300 Kinosternon from all recognized taxa and subtaxa from Texas to the Florida Keys and up the Atlantic seaboard to Delaware to determine evolutionary relationships of these taxa. Oral