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Common Snapping Turtle
Chelydra serpentina
42.3003, -83.6633
Field Notes
Description:
Series: On this particular morning, I found this large grumpy Snapping Turtle digging a shallow spot in the soil where just one day earlier, in the same spot, there was a mother Killdeer nesting a single egg (photo included and posted separately). I had been monitoring both the Killdeer mother and egg for several days in hopes to photograph the hatching. Unfortunately, once the turtle left, there was no evidence of either the mother or egg.
Habitat:
Grassy area about 10 meters from a freshwater pond.
Notes:
Snapping turtles consume both plant and animal matter, and are important aquatic scavengers, but they are also active hunters that prey on anything they can swallow, including many invertebrates, fish, frogs, reptiles (including snakes and smaller turtles), unwary birds, and small mammals. In some areas, adult snapping turtles can be incidentally detrimental to breeding waterfowl, as they will occasionally take ducklings and goslings but their effect on such prey is frequently exaggerated.
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