www.dreamstime.com Snapping Turtle Largest North American Turtle The alligator snapping turtle, Macroclemys temminckii, is the largest fresh water turtle in North America. In captivity, this species of turtle can exceed 230 pounds, but in the wild they generally do not grow to more than 100 pounds (usually found weighing between 20 and 80 pounds.) Males tend to be larger than females. In 2000, researchers trapped a male alligator snapping turtle on Lake that weighed 102.3 pounds.

Trey Barron Photography Often confused with the common snapping turtle, which rarely exceeds 20 pounds, the alligator snapping www.dreamstime.com turtle has a huge head with a hooked beak. The carapace or shell of the turtle is chestnut to drab brown while canopy cover and where submerged the head, neck, limbs, and tail are logs, stumps, branches and the base drab olive to dark tan. In older turtles of cypress trees are found. In the winter the head lightens in color ranging from they retreat to deep holes and beige to ivory. Alligator snapping undercut banks. turtles are long-lived with recorded ages of 36 years in the wild and 58 Threatened in years in captivity. They reach sexual maturity at 11 to 13 years. Though listed as threatened in Texas and most surrounding states, the turtles This species consumes a wide can still be non-commercially hunted variety of food such as fish, in . In the mid 1970s there was salamanders, frogs, snakes, and a small turtle trapping operation on various plants. Alligator snapping Caddo Lake. Turtles were caught in SPE CI ES OFTH E M ONTH turtles have a small pink appendage hoop nets and taken to Uncertain, on their tongue which resembles a Texas for processing and sold to worm. The turtle uses this to attract fish. local markets. This operation closed When one moves in for a closer look, after only one year. Although legally the mouth slams shut expelling water protected now on the Texas side of through the nostrils, and the fish is swal- Caddo Lake, as elsewhere in Texas, lowed. No other turtle possesses such these turtles can still fall victim to drop an appendage. lines such as limb, jug, and trotlines. At Caddo Lake, alligator snapping Habitat alteration through construction turtles can be found in the lake as of , channelization of rivers, well as in the back waters and sloughs. and loss of nesting habitat continue They seem to prefer waters with to impact wild populations.

Text Source: Laura Speight, Biologist, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department