Adult female Escambia map turtles develop hypertrophied heads.
Jake and I had been talking about making a photographic foray for the various southeastern map turtles (Graptemys) for some time. One hot day in June 2016 we decided that the time had finally come. We had motored to Florida’s western panhandle in search of a bog frog (successful), and the first map turtle on Jake’s list, the Escambia map, was just a hop, skip, and jump further westward. So we found a motel and at sunrise the next morning we began our hopping, skipping, and jumping to the Escambia River drainage, where from a fishing dock, Jake got his lifer Escambia map turtle, G. ernsti, an adult female. The turtle was well above the waterline on a distant snag, but was immediately identifiable.

Although this broad-headed map turtle had been known to exist in the Escambia, Yellow, and Shoal rivers system for years, until 1992 it had been considered the easternmost population of the Alabama map turtle. Females attain a length of 7 to 10+ inches. Males are about half that size.