Photo courtesy of Brad Glorioso.
The Ringed Map Turtle (Graptemys oculifera)
For over forty years now, the Ringed Map Turtle (Graptemys oculifera)—a small chelonian with yellow accents, including a distinct yellow stripe covering its lower jaw—was believed to have exactly one geographical home in the world: the Pearl River system in Louisiana and Mississippi. Protected as a Threatened species under the Endangered Species Act since 1986, the little turtle faces threats including channelization, dam construction, sedimentation, and river channel erosion—as well as predators and collection for the pet trade.
But this spring, after three years of research, scientists have confirmed something remarkable: the Ringed Map Turtle has existed in another waterway, the Bogue Falaya, this entire time. The findings of the study, “Hiding in plain sight: Federally protected Ringed Map Turtles found in a new river system,” were published in the April 2024 issue of Herpetological Conservation and Biology by U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Brad Glorioso, biologist Will Selman from Millsaps College, and biologist Brian Krieser from the University of Southern Mississippi. Also included as an author on the study was eighteen-year-old Aidan Ford, an amateur nature photographer who discovered the Ringed Map Turtle in Covington, Louisiana in 2021.
“Scientists can only be in very limited places at any time. With public databases like iNaturalist and others, folks can be integral in discovering new populations of rare species or tracking the spread of invasive species, to name a few examples.” —Brad Glorioso
Glorioso was browsing the citizen-scientist website iNaturalist when he saw Ford’s photograph in August of that year. Recognizing the threatened turtle in the photo, he reached out to Ford, who was fifteen at the time, and made plans to investigate himself. His biggest question was: were these turtles moved to the area by humans, or did they exist here all along?
“On a basic level, one of the significant facts of this study is how, even in the middle of a city on a well-traveled waterway like the Bogue Falaya, a federally-listed conspicuous basking turtle can go undetected by science for so long,” he said. Ford’s discovery is an example, he noted of how important citizen science work can be to our collective understanding of our ecosystems. “Scientists can only be in very limited places at any time. With public databases like iNaturalist and others, folks can be integral in discovering new populations of rare species or tracking the spread of invasive species, to name a few examples.”
That there are at least two separate populations of the Ringed Map Turtle, in two separate systems, gives the species a better chance at overall survival—since it is less dependent on the success of a single river system that might someday be vulnerable to catastrophic events like natural disasters or devastating pollution.
