{"id":6679,"date":"2026-05-29T17:09:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/?p=6679"},"modified":"2026-05-29T17:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T22:09:36","slug":"map-turtles-of-cook-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/map-turtles-of-cook-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Map Turtles of Cook County!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m a Map, I&#8217;m a Map, I&#8217;m a Map!!!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Map Turtles are a species unique to cook county aquatic turtle teams and we&#8217;re excited that we&#8217;ve been sampling a ton this week!<\/p>\n<p>Map turtles are distinguishable by their yellow or cream-colored markings on their skin and spot behind their eyes. Their carapace also has unique, topographic map-like lines. They often inhabit slow-moving bodies of freshwater such as rivers, lakes, streams, and ponds that have aquatic vegetation. They lean towards a carnivorous diet, feeding on snails, mussels, fish, and crustaceans, using a larger than normal keratinized palate to break open shells. The average life span of a map turtle is around 20-30 years. We use size and tail length to distinguish male and female turtles, with females leaning towards being substantially larger and males having a longer tail!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-6680 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2026\/05\/IMG1126320487593831552-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"a male map turtle angry at the world\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2026\/05\/IMG1126320487593831552-200x267.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2026\/05\/IMG1126320487593831552-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2026\/05\/IMG1126320487593831552-400x534.jpg 400w, https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/18\/2026\/05\/IMG1126320487593831552.jpg 547w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Our rising second year Caitlyn Nguyen&#8217;s project is focused on learning more about the overall health of these mollusk creating baselines in overall health and disease prevalence.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I&#8217;m a Map, I&#8217;m a Map, I&#8217;m a Map!!! &nbsp; Map Turtles are a species unique to cook county aquatic turtle teams and we&#8217;re excited that we&#8217;ve been sampling a ton this week! Map turtles are distinguishable by their yellow or cream-colored markings on their skin and spot behind their eyes. Their carapace also  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1593,"featured_media":6681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1593"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6683,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6679\/revisions\/6683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}