Range: The Ringed Map Turtle (Baur, 1890) is found in the Pearl River and its tributaries in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Pearl River is a large river that can have very swift currents when the water is high.
Description: This is a small to medium size turtle. Males are about 3.5 to 4.5 inches as adults and females are about 5 to 7.5 inches long. This turtle is part of the narrow head group of map turtles and therefore is mostly an insect eater, but they are also opportunistic so crustaceans and fish could also be eaten. It has the typical map turtle central keel that is exaggerated as a hatchling and slowly wears down with age, especially old females. However, of all the map turtle species, this group (the sawback group, G. nigrinoda, G. oculifera and G. flavimaculata) has the highest central keel. This turtles differs from G. nigrinoda (Black-knobbed Map Turtle) and G. flavimaculata (Yellow-blotched Map Turtle) in having a red, orange or yellow ring (circle) in each of the carapacial pleural (costal) scutes. It also has a small plastral pattern that consists of a few horizontal lines.
Habitat: Like the other sawbacks, G. oculifera inhabits a sandy/mud bottomed river. It is associated with brush piles (trees that have died and fell into the river). It spends much of the day basking on these fallen trees and quickly jumps into the water when approached. They seek refuge on the bottom of the river and in between the branches of the falling trees. I have found that females prefer to bask further off shore and on tree stumps, in general.
Legal Status Endangered in Mississippi, Federally Threatened
Other Information: In the sections of the Pearl River where I have looked for G. oculifera, it was not uncommon. Both G. oculifera and G. gibbonsi appear to be equally common. This is another example of a broad-head species and a narrow -head species living sympatrically. Other species that are found in the same places as this species are Graptemys gibbonsi (Pascagoula Map), Pseudemys concinna (River Cooters), Trachemys scripta elegans (Red Eared Slider), Sternotherus carinatus (Razor-back Musk), Macroclemys temminckii (Alligator Snapping Turtles, not Loggerheads as named by the locals), and Apalone spinifera aspera, (Gulf Coast Spiny Softshell). G. flavimaculata is part of the narrow head group. G. gibbonsi, a broad head species, can be found along side G. oculifera. The Pearl River, in Mississippi, looks like the Pascagoula, Alabama, Tensaw or any of the other "typical" gulf coast Graptemys rivers. In Louisiana, near the Gulf of Mexico, the Pearl River resembles a Cypress swamp. I have seen G. oculifera in both the typical map turtle river habitat and this cypress swamp type habitat. It appears to be equally as common in both habitat types in the Pearl River.
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A hatchling G. oculifera in a brush pile
An adult male Graptemys oculifera naps while basking in the Pearl River
A typical brush pile and a Graptemys oculifera