Florida has two species of naturally occurring map turtles, both riverine species. Both are wary. Very wary.



Since they are possessed of excellent eyesight, a hopeful observer is more apt to see only the ripples left behind a plunging map turtle than a view of the turtle itself. One of these species is the beautiful, dimorphic, Barbour's map, Graptemys barbouri. These map turtles are inhabitants of Florida's Apalachicola, Chipola, and Choctawatchee, Alabama's Pea and Flint, and Georgia's Chattahoochee and Flint river systems. In Georgia, the ranges of the Barbour's and the Escambia map turtles abut or overlap, and hybridization is known.

But, if you're both cautious and lucky, you may actually see one of these brownish gray, saw-backed, map turtles basking quietly on a protruding snag. Sometimes you'll catch them perched well above the water level on what would seem to be an impossibly thin branch. The broad, well developed, head markings vary from creamy-yellow to lime green and cover most of the temporal area.

Females of this species are adult at ten to twelve inches in length and probably first breed when they are between twelve and twenty years of age. Adult females develop enlarged heads and feed primarily on snails, clams, and mussels, both native and introduced. Males, narrow-headed, are adult at four to five inches in length, breed at four to six years of age, and like the juveniles feed largely on insects.

Barbour's maps are protected or of regulated take throughout their tri-state range.