common snapping turtle
Chelydra serpentina
Distribution 4
Global Range: (>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)) Range extends from southern Alberta eastward across southern Canada to Nova Scotia, and south to the Gulf Coast (Texas to Florida), and west in the United States to the Rocky Mountains. Snapping turtles have been introduced in several places in western North America and eastern Asia.
Habitat and ecology 5
Habitat and Ecology
Snapping Turtles feed on a wide variety of animal and plant matter, and undergo extensive scavenging activities. At reported densities of 1.249 animals or 19166 kg per hectare of suitable habitat, its biomass and presumably its ecological significance are substantial.
Males reach 49.4 cm carapace length (CL), females 36.6 cm CL. Maturity is reached at at 46 yrs and 1819 cm CL in males, and at about 1012 (range 918) years / 2022 (1929) cm CL in females. Longevity 2530 years (max 40 yrs). They usually produce a single clutch of 2545 eggs (number of eggs increases with latitude) (Ernst and Lovich 2009). Generation time apparently has not been calculated. Incubation commonly takes 7595 days. Hatchlings measure about 29 mm on average (range 1638 mm).
[Information taken from reviews by Aresco et al. 2006, Steyermark et al. 2008, Ernst and Lovich 2009].
Systems
- Terrestrial
- Freshwater
Ecology 6
In Ontario, males occupied relatively stable, overlapping home ranges; summer range 0.4-2.3 ha (Galbraith et al. 1987). Also in Ontario, July-August foraging home ranges in three sites during one year were 2.3-18.1 ha (means fell between 5 and 9 ha); home range length was about 550-1990 m; home range size did not vary with habitat productivity (Brown et al. 1994). In another Ontario study, home range size over a year was 1.0-28.4 ha, averaging about 9 ha for females and about 2-3 ha for males (Pettit et al. 1995).
Frequently incurs high rates of nest predation (30-100% in Michigan) by various Carnivora (Congdon et al. 1987). See Iverson (1991) for a compilation of survivorship data (egg survival low, not more than 0.22; adult survival generally high, over 0.90). A population in Ontario, Canada, was characterized as stable, with adult female annual survivorship greater than 0.95; later, a great increase in adult mortality occurred, apparently due primarily to otter predation on hibernating turtles; there was no compensatory density-dependent response in reproduction and recruitment (Brooks et al. 1991). In Michigan, actual annual survivorship of juveniles was over 0.65 by age 2 and averaged 0.77 between ages 2 and 12 years; annual survivorship of adult females ranged from 0.88 to 0.97; population stability was most sensitive to changes in adult or juvenile survival and less sensitive to changes in age at sexual maturity, nest survival, or fecundity (Congdon et al. 1994).
Behaviour 7
Snapping turtles communicate to mates with leg movements while the turtles face each other. Snapping turtles also use their sense of smell, vision, and touch to detect prey. They may sense vibrations in the water.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile ; chemical
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; vibrations ; chemical
Sources and Credits
- (c) 2011 Todd Pierson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=346178&one=T
- 2009 Bill Moses, no known copyright restrictions (public domain), http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=273239&one=T
- (c) 2011 Todd Pierson, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=346180&one=T
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/30061757
- (c) International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/34373094
- (c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/28888081
- (c) The Regents of the University of Michigan and its licensors, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/31385675
