A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Large turtle, probably 16 inches in diameter. There's actually two turtles in this shot - one was 16 inches, one was maybe 14. The larger one had the spikes on his shell (see second shot), but the smaller one was smooth and flat. The entire 15 minutes I was there, these two turtles were locked together, ventral side to ventral side. Either fighting or mating. I'm guessing the latter, since neither of them seemed to be making much of an effort to get away from the other and when they did break apart they came back together pretty quickly. (See video of their behavior.) That said, I'm not 100% sure they're the same species. Will turtles interbreed like ducks and dogs? These were easily the largest wild turtles I've ever seen in Illinois.
Slow moving creek in Illinois.
@OrbemEzatTnod - Hi. Instead of putting links to the hubpages site in most of your comments, you could put a link to that site in your Project Noah profile bio. There are sometimes good reference links already on the spotting and/or on a Suggest ID (like in this spotting). Additional links are helpful, but they can possibly take users off the Project Noah site. Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
Awesome video! - here is some more little known info on snapping turtles http://tsadjatko.hubpages.com/hub/The-co...
What a unique spotting, with video too! These are definitely 2 common snapping turtles (Chelyrdra serpentina). Those 3 ridges that you see in the 2nd picture are common in this species, but they tend to smooth out and be less defined in older individuals. Also, female snappers are slightly bigger than male snappers. So it looks like an older male snapper attempting to mate with a younger female. Great spotting Kymberlee! I love it!
It's really neat that you got to see common snapper courtship/breeding... and captured video! Thanks for sharing.
Spotted on Apr 22, 2012
Submitted on Apr 22, 2012
+3
