Posted: 10/6/04

Snapping Turtle

Our cabin is near the northern limit of the range of the common snapping turtle. This animal becomes dormant once the water temperature is cooler than 40 degrees Fahrenheit-in our area, that is seven months of the year. Perhaps five months of activity is the minimum requirement to sustain a creature as large and heavy as a snapper.

When basking, the snapper remains entirely in the water, floating with just nostrils above the surface to take the air. This method absorbs some of the sunís warmth, without inhibiting the growth of algae (which is valuable camouflage) on the turtleís back. During the day, you will see just the nostrils above the surface-they quickly disappear when there is a disturbance.
Snappers eat almost anything, including fish and waterfowl. They cannot swim fast enough to chase down most prey, but if anything comes within range, the bite is lightning quick and extremely powerful. Fortunately for human swimmers, these turtles are not aggressive in the water, and will retreat from a confrontation if at all possible.

Snappers leave the water only if their pond dries up, or (females) to lay eggs in a sandy burrow. Humans incubating snapper eggs have discovered you can determine the sex of the hatchlings by controlling the temperature of the burrow! Incubate at 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and you get males. Incubate at less than about 72, or more than 82, and you get females. At the edges of the temperature range, you get a mix.

Can you imagine mother snapper, pausing to calculate the likely temperature range before depositing her load of 30 to 40 eggs? Can she possibly understand that a sunny southern exposure will yield one sex, while a shady spot will yield the other?
These calculations seem a little beyond a creature we consider ponderous and primitive. All the same, the more science uncovers about these fellow creatures, the more astonishing our shared existences become.

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