It’s springtime. Love is in the air and mating is on the mind of many marsh creatures, including these Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina). The first image makes it look like love is a tender affair for these turtles, but the reality seems to be that mating is brutal and violent.
Most of the activity takes place underwater so it is hard to know what is going on, but it looks like the male jumps the female and essentially tries to drown her. Periodically she is able to struggle to the surface to grab a breath of air before the weight of the male forces her underwater. After a half hour or so, the female managed to decouple and to swim away, leaving the male, as you can see in the final shot,with a look of satisfaction on his face.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Great shots of their behaviour and that final shot is a great portrait. They are not the bonniest animals and my husband tells me they are very aggressive. They used to attack him and his cousins when they went swimming.
Thanks, Laura. I was going to lead with that final shot, which is my favorite, but decided to focus attention on the couple. I can’t imaging being in the water if I knew there were snapping turtles around. They look to be awfully powerful and I imagine that their bite would hurt a lot.
They can stay under for quite a while. I waited for about half an hour for one to surface the other day, and it never did.
Beautiful shots! You are lucky to see such a gorgeous creature!
Thanks, Lucy. “Gorgeous” is not he first word that I would use to describe a snapping turtle, but I am lucky to have a wonderful marshland park in the area of Northern Virginia where I live. The park has a wonderful habitat full of all kinds of fascinating creatures.
They are fascinating indeed. Considering that I’m a huge reptile lover, and I love crocodiles and snakes, I would say snapping turtle are gorgeous 🙂 Have a lovely weekend!
We have a fair-sized pond in our front yard, and there are always at least two snapping turtles in residence. In the summer, I throw store-bought white bread to the fish, and the turtles will also come up to eat. Not satisfied to eat what goes into the water, they will often try to climb out of the pond after the bread. They are torn between hunger and fear of me, so usually flop back into the water after getting both front feet onto the ground. I’ve taken to putting a piece of bread on a long ( at least a foot) stick or twig and feeding them that way. I am crazy, but not dumb enough to try to hand feed the little devils. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
Handfeeding a snapping turtle would definitely be a bad idea. I am not even sure that I am brave enough to get within a foot of the sharp claws and powerful jaws of a snapper.