It’s a face only a mother could love. Well, a mother or a wildlife biologist.
But if you ever get face-to-face with a 200-pound, 100 year-old alligator snapping turtle with its gaping jaws spread wide, waiting to clamp down on whatever is unfortunate enough to be within biting range, it’s an experience you’re not likely to forget.
“Alligator snapping turtles, I think, are just the most impressive turtles we have in Alabama,” said Mark Bailey, a conservation biologist who has trapped the animals for research studies in various parts of Alabama.
Impressive is one way of putting it. The turtles can live to be more than 100 years old and weigh more than some SEC linebackers. With a set of ridges and protrusions from their shells, many people say it looks more like a dinosaur than their modern-day relatives.
“They just look prehistoric,” Bailey said. “A lot of people see a big common snapping turtle, and make the mistake of thinking it’s an alligator snapping turtle.
“But when you see a really big alligator snapping turtle, it’s hard to mistake it.”
An alligator snapping turtle in Big Escambia Creek, Escambia County, Ala.Courtesy Mark Bailey
Some animals in AL.com’s weirdest Alabama animals series require more explanation. What’s so weird about this bird or a fire ant anyway?
The alligator snapping turtle isn’t one of those.
Just a glance at one of these massive prehistoric-looking turtles and you’ll never doubt that the animal is weird, terrifying, and possibly not even from this planet or this millennium.
No wonder the animal has inspired so many myths and urban legends.
“There’s stories you’ll hear about, as part of the the mythology of the turtle, that they’ve been found with Indian arrowheads stuck in their shells and stuff like that, because they’ve been alive that long,” Bailey said. “But that’s all probably just exaggerated myth.”
Bailey said the snappers can live to be about 80-100 years old, and weigh up to about 240 pounds. He said the turtles do continue growing through their entire lives though, so if there were any ancient monsters still lurking in Alabama swamps, they would be pretty darn big.
Some people will also tell you that the turtle’s powerful jaws can snap clean through a broomstick.
Jim Godwin, who’s actually been bitten by one, says he doubts that.
Godwin, a biologist with the Alabama Natural Heritage Program at Auburn University, has studied the snappers as long as anyone in Alabama, and told AL.com about an incident where he got snapped.
Godwin had pulled a mid-sized female alligator snapper into the boat but was working on another turtle, when the still-netted alligator snapper bit down on his forearm. Godwin said the animal released its jaws almost immediately, possibly because the turtle had bitten him through the net, and did not draw blood.
“I was not paying attention at the time and I got off lucky,” Godwin told AL.com in 2016.
Godwin said the animals were actually fairly easy to handle, as the shape of their shell makes it hard to turn their head and bite someone behind them.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Nov. 8, 2021 that it has proposed adding the alligator snapping turtle to the endangered species list for protection under the Endangered Species Act. (Photo by Gary Tucker, USFWS)
These turtles may look menacing, but their temperament is more of a peaceful fisherman, until you try to pick one up.
Their massive jaws are designed not for snapping broomsticks or finger bones, but for catching fish, crayfish or other aquatic creatures at the bottom of creeks or swamps.
The turtle’s tongues have a small appendage that acts like a fishing lure, wiggling and dancing around in dark, murky waters to attract its prey. The turtle waits motionless until some unlucky creature takes the bait and then snaps its jaws shut over its dinner.
Like many scary looking animals, humans are a much bigger threat to the alligator snapping turtles than the other way around. The turtles were hunted extensively for their meat and population levels dropped dramatically through the Southeast.
Because the turtles live a long time, they’re also slow to reproduce, and populations can take a long time to rebound.
The turtles are now a protected species in Alabama and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a proposal to add the snappers to the federal Endangered Species List. Some experts are torn on this proposal.
Godwin said that studying these turtles is very labor-intensive and so it’s hard to know how endangered they really are.
“We can’t go into some of these waters and actually watch them,” Godwin said. “Down around Mobile Bay, it’s so turbid, there’s no visibility. So as far as humans go in studying these animals, we’re rather limited.”