Southern Black Knobbed Sawback Map Turtle

The Southern Black Knobbed Map Turtle is the rarer of the two Black Knob subspecies. Also known as the Delta Map Turtle, southern Black Knobs are found only in the interconnecting waterways of the Mobile Bay drainage delta in southern Alabama. Perhaps even more beautiful than their northern cousins, the“Delticolas”as they are often referred to by the few breeders who work with them, require the same set up and husbandry as Northern Black Knobs.

One of the narrow headed maps, Black-knobs (also called Black- knobbed saw backs) are excellent swimmers, and spend a lot of time foraging the bottom and searching underwater objects for food. They do very well in set ups with lots of water circulation, often swimming into the current for hours on end. Black-knobs love insects, they will take pellets and some water plants or even Romaine lettuce. They love to bask, and dive back in once startled, as they are very cautious on the surface, but once underwater they seem oblivious to observers, and put on an active display, making them a fine tank turtle.

This species has been on the losing end of interaction with humans for some time now, and it's future in the wild is in jeopardy. Only a handful of breeders have had success with Black knobs, so availability is very limited.