[8] The species now known as Sternotherus odoratus was first described by the French taxonomist Pierre André Latreille in 1801, from a specimen collected near Charleston, South Carolina.

The head is vaguely triangular in shape, with a pointed snout and sharp beak, and yellow-green striping from the tip of the nose to the neck.

They lack the cloacal bursae, internal pouch like structures, that some similar species have that assist with regulating buoyancy by storing water.

The eastern musk turtle is mostly aquatic, spending the vast majority of its time in shallow, heavily vegetated waters of slow moving creeks, or in ponds.

It can climb sloping, partially submerged tree trunks or branches to as high as 2 m (6.6 ft) above the water surface, and has been known to drop into boats or canoes passing underneath.

[12] It is a poor swimmer and can most often be found walking along the bottom of its native habitats, which include swamps, marshes, ephemeral pools, and large rivers and lakes.

S. odoratus is found in a variety of wetland habitats and littoral zones, particularly shallow watercourses with a slow current and muddy bottom.

[5] Fallen trees and coarse woody debris are known to be important components of wetland habitat, and may be particularly beneficial to basking turtles.

The most common prey in the diet are mollusks (gastropods and bivalves), insects (including larva, adults, aquatic and terrestrial), and crustaceans (amphipods, isopods, and crayfish).

feed on a higher percentage of aquatic insects, algae, and carrion with an ontogenetic shift to a broader diet in adults.

Eastern musk turtles typically walk on the bottom of waterways with their necks extended searching for food, probing their heads into sand, mud, and decaying vegetation.

The study refuted the idea that S. odoratus are simply dietary generalists and that fluctuations in food availability, density, seasonal variation, and reproductive conditions influence their diet.

[20] A Michigan study suggested that the scavenging habits may be overestimated in the species and that musk turtles feed readily on freshly dead material but refuse animal flesh in advanced stages of decay.

[22] Breeding of the eastern musk turtle occurs in the spring, and females often lay between 2 and 9 elliptical, hard-shelled eggs in a shallow burrow or under shoreline debris.

[5] The eggs hatch in late summer or early fall after an incubation period of 100 to 150 days, making this turtle a species that displays delayed emergence.

Though the eastern musk turtle holds no federal conservation status in the US and is quite common throughout most of its range, it has declined notably in some areas, and appears to be more sensitive than some native species to human degradation of wetlands.