Walking around Phillips Lake this morning, in southeast Columbia, my wife and I encountered a snapping turtle, lounging in the grass. Since these long-lived, prehistoric creatures seldom leave their aquatic home, I surmised it was likely a female, surveying a location to lay her eggs.
Found throughout the eastern 2/3 of North America, common snapping turtles have a low level of successful reproduction but may live for a century. Favoring shallow lakes and bays, they feed on a wide variety of creatures, including invertebrates, fish, frogs and aquatic turtles, unwary herons and small mammals as well as on carrion. Natural predators are limited to larger snappers, alligators, river otters (when the snappers are relatively young) and coyotes or bears (when traveling to nest sites or between lakes).
Indeed, the snapper that we observed this morning was missing a section of its posterior carapace and several leeches were attached to the exposed skin. The natural world is almost always beautiful from a distance but close inspection often reveals the scars of life in the wild.
