Description: The carapace is dark olive to brown, high-domed, and moderately keeled. As hatchlings, the keel is stronger with dark spines that become smaller with age. There is a black dorsal stripe that is normally complete across all five marginals. The posterior edge of the carapace is serrated. Each pleural scute contains yellow or orange markings. The dorsal surface of each marginal has a wide bar of the same yellow or orange color and typically lacks prominent concentric circles; any concentric markings are often muted (the description focuses on the 5th left marginal). The 12th marginal has pigment that usually extends less than 50% up the scute toward the last vertebral scute. The plastron is yellow with dark pigment following the seams. The ventral surface of the marginals has some dark pigment on them, particularly marginals 1 through 5. The skin is brown to olive with light yellow or yellow-green stripes and blotches. The head pattern contains a large interorbital blotch that is connected to a pair of postorbital blotches. These blotches are likely to form a trident on top of the nose.

Habitat: This turtle inhabits large to medium-sized rivers, especially those with an abundance of mollusks, sandy banks or sandbars, deep pools, and logs or other suitable basking sites. It may venture into shallow water or onto sandy beaches at night, but usually clings to submerged objects just below the surface of the water. Nests are in sandy banks or sand bars.

Range: It is endemic to the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Ringed Map turtle (G. oculifera) is also endemic to the Pearl River.

Found in these States: LA | MS

Diet: Adult females depend largely on mollusks, especially clams and snails; males and juvenile females feed mostly on insects and other arthropods.

Reproduction: Nesting season runs from late April through early August. It is normal for them to lay several clutches per year, typically with 4-8 eggs per clutch. Females typically must be at least 7 inches SCL to be sexually mature. The smallest recorded sexually mature male was 3.5 inches PL.

Status: This species appears to be highly vulnerable to the negative effects of water pollution and sedimentation on its prey, particularly freshwater mollusks. In the Columbia reach of the Pearl River drainage, downstream of the Monticello pulp mill, the G. pearlensis population has declined relative to that of G. oculifera over the past seventeen years, perhaps, because of a decline in the mussel population associated with diminished water quality. Exploitation for the pet trade, particularly in the Lower Pearl River drainage in Louisiana, may be significant

Subspecies: None

Taxonomy: Until 2010, it was included in the Pascagoula map turtle (G. gibbonsi), which it resembles. In 2010 Ennen and colleagues described Graptemys pearlensis as a new species. They used sequence variation of the mitochondrial control region along with the ND4 gene and found out three samples of Graptemys pearlensis constituting reciprocally monophyletic sister clades.