However, there are few specimens available that indicate intergradation of _asper_ with the _spinifer-hartwegi_ complex in the lower Mississippi River drainage; this may be due to the fact that _asper_ inhabits waterways that do not drain into the Mississippi River. Perhaps intergradation is more prevalent than the morphological basis that I have relied upon indicates; in any event, there are few specimens that have more than one dark marginal line (which is the only character that is unique for _asper_) from the lower Mississippi drainage. A young male (TU 11928.9) from Bayou Gauche between Paradis and Des Allemands, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, has a pattern on the carapace resembling that of _asper_; several other small softshells (TU) are available from the same locality but none shows more than one dark marginal line. Another specimen (USNM 95192), a young female from a barrow pit of the Big Black River (Mississippi River drainage), Madison County, Mississippi, resembles _asper_ in having more than one marginal ring. Of three large females from Moon Lake, an ox-bow of the Mississippi River in Coatopa County, Mississippi (AMNH 5285-86, 5289), only 5289 shows evidence of two marginal lines. USNM 73669 (Greenwood, LeFlore County, Mississippi) also indicates intergradation in that the spots tend to be linear just inside the dark marginal line, but the specimen more closely resembles the _hartwegi-spinifer_ complex rather than _asper_. There seems to be little adumbration of the dark marginal lines of _asper_ in populations from the lower Mississippi River drainage. Blackish spots and ocelli vary in size and there are many kinds of pattern on the carapace. Soft-shelled turtles inhabiting the Mississippi River and its tributaries in Louisiana and Mississippi certainly represent an intergrading population of _spinifer_ and _hartwegi_, and, to a lesser extent, of _asper_. Soft-shelled turtles inhabiting the Pearl River drainage and rivers that drain into Lake Pontchartrain immediately adjacent to the east are predominantly _asper_. Specimens having localities from the Pearl River and Lake Pontchartrain drainages are listed under the account of _asper_ and are referred to that subspecies on the distribution map; specimens from the Mississippi drainage in Mississippi are referred to _spinifer_. One specimen (UMMZ 59198, Bradley County, Tennessee), from the Tennessee River drainage where _T. s. spinifer_ occurs, deviates markedly from _spinifer_ and suggests intergradation. UMMZ 59198, plastral length 4.8 centimeters, has ocelli in the center of the carapace only two millimeters in diameter, a distinct but interrupted, second marginal ring consisting of spots, and the pale postlabial and postocular stripes in contact on both sides of the head.