Description: Also known as a "sawback" turtle, the carapace features a vertebral row of low spines, and is serrated on the posterior rim. The carapace is olive to brown in color with light yellowish markings with dark borders. The plastron color varies from cream to yellow and is patterned with dark lines along the seams in juveniles. The body color of the false map turtle is grayish brown to blackish and is marked with light brown, yellow, or whitish stripes. The eye can be brown, light yellow, white, or green and is crossed with a dark bar. Narrow hooked marks behind the eye fuse with dorsal lines on the head and neck. Also, small light-colored spots occur below the eye and on the chin.
Habitat: False map turtles are found predominantly in large rivers and backwaters, but also in bayous, oxbows, lakes, ponds, sloughs, drowned forests, and occasionally marshes. They prefer water with slow currents, places to bask, and abundant aquatic vegetation. They can sometimes be found in the swiftly flowing main channels of large rivers.
Range: The false map turtle lives in large streams of the Missouri and Mississippi River systems, ranging from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, through the Dakotas southward to southwestern Alabama, southern and western Mississippi, and Louisiana. The false map turtle also lives in several other river systems of Southwest Louisiana and East Texas.
Diet: False map turtles are generalist omnivores. The difference in size between males and females provides a partitioning of food resources. Females eat mollusks, (Vallisneria, Potamogeton, Lemna, and insects including caddisflies (Trichoptera), mayfly larvae (Ephemeroptera), and damselfly larvae (Zygoptera). Males eat the same insects as females, along with beetles (Coleoptera), flies (Diptera), other insect larvae, mollusks, fish carrion, and small amounts of vegetation.
Reproduction: Male false map turtles identify a potential mate using visual and olfactory cues; the olfactory cues come from the female’s anal vent. Once a female is found, there is a male courtship display where the male first strokes his potential mate’s head and neck with his foreclaws. The male then drums his foreclaws over the female’s eyes. If she remains motionless, the male will then attempt to mate with her. Copulation lasts from 15 seconds to over 4 hours and is facilitated by the male hooking his tail around the female’s tail.
Graptemys pseudogeographica mate twice a year in April and again in October and November. Nesting season lasts from mid-May to late July, with the first clutch laid from mid-May to mid-June. Nests are excavated during the day with most clutches being deposited in the morning. Large groups of female false map turtles can be found near nesting beaches waiting environmental factors to become favorable for nesting. Nests are located anywhere from 16 to 495 feet from the water in open sand areas or areas containing low shrubs. The female digs the nest with her hind feet to be 4 to 6.3 inches deep. After the eggs are laid they are covered and packed down with sand. Females can lay 2 to 3 clutches a year with clutch sizes of 8 to 22 eggs.
Male false map turtles sexually mature at 4 to 6 years and females sexually mature at about 8 to 14 years.
Status: False map turtles are not currently considered threatened. Turtle populations throughout the United States are affected by collection for the pet trade, freshwater habitat destruction, and water pollution.
Disclaimer: ITIS taxonomy is based on the latest scientific consensus available, and is provided as a general reference source for interested parties. However, it is not a legal authority for statutory or regulatory purposes. While every effort has been made to provide the most reliable and up-to-date information available, ultimate legal requirements with respect to species are contained in provisions of treaties to which the United States is a party, wildlife statutes, regulations, and any applicable notices that have been published in the Federal Register. For further information on U.S. legal requirements with respect to protected taxa, please contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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