Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)

The common snapping turtle has to be one of my favorite herps. As a kid I grew up catching hatchlings every summer and watched them grow into some fearsome, real live versions of Bowser from Super Mario Bros, willing to take on anything naive enough to get close to their mouths. When I have obtained them as hatchlings though they usually grew up to be relatively docile, albeit eating machines. I've found them in all kinds of places including roads, trails, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, puddles, and on the ends of fishing line, but very rarely have those places been far from water. They have a very wide range and are pretty pollutant tolerant so anywhere there might be water and prey they can probably be found, although spotting one is sometimes difficult because they have carapaces that have the tendency to be caked in mud and algae. The inhabit most of the eastern United States and will eat just about any kind of meat they can find such as carrion, crayfish, fish, smaller turtles, rodents, snakes, frogs, and have been known to consume small amounts of vegetation. Females lay anywhere from 10 to almost 100 spherical eggs in early summer and hatchlings either emerge late summer or early fall, or they overwinter in the nest.
-Jordan DeMott