As I was wandering about Huntley Meadows Park this morning, I came upon the remains of an Eastern Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) that quite obviously did not survive the winter. It looks to have been in place for quite some time not far from the water’s edge of a stream in a remote area of the park.
I don’t know if a predator consumed its flesh, but it looks like a lot of the bones were scattered around the skull of the turtle, as you can see in the first photo. I move the shell to nearby location to get shots of the the top and underside and also took a close-up shot of the skull.
Snapping Turtle remains in situ
Detailed view of the top of the shell
Detailed view of the underside of the shell
Detailed view of the skull
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Great post. For some reason WordPress sometimes drops people I follow. Hence the re follows to your blog.
Thanks, Victor. I have noticed the same thing with WordPress.
That’s interesting. I’ve seen a lot of dead animals but never a turtle. I can’t guess why it would have died. There aren’t many other animals that will bother a snapper when it’s alive and well.
I’m thinking this one died of natural causes, but it’s hard to tell. of course.
You’ve reminded me that it’s time to put the cardboard boxes and old towels in the trunk of my car. We’re getting to the time of year when the turtles emerge from the mud, and there are a lot of primary roads between ponds. They sometimes get hit, thrown, and bounced around, and end up with cracked shells. There’s a turtle rehabber in town who can repair those shells if there’s no internal injuries. Sometimes, she uses fiberglass. Amazing.
My kids found this fascinating. Thank you.
That’s great, Laura. When I discovered the turtle, I was actually thinking how excited your kids would have been (you mentioned that they liked skulls, and the turtle’s is pretty unusual).
That’s so funny that you thought of them. Seeing living turtles in the wild is still pretty new to them so seeing a dead one would have had them dancing with joy.
They really would have loved this one. The turtle shell was over a foot long.
The snapper seems to have lost its snap! Nonetheless, good snaps, Mike.
Thanks, Walter.