Family Chelydridae – Snapping Turtles

Snapping turtles are large turtles with massive heads, long tails, and thick, strong legs with heavy claws. They have strong jaws and hooked beaks. Their shells are small for their body size, particularly the plastron, and the carapace has 12 scutes along each side.

These primitive-looking turtles spend their lives in water, usually submerged at the bottom of a still pond. They have lungs, not gills, so they must surface to breathe but can tolerate long periods with little oxygen. They feed on whatever they find or can catch.

This is a New World family, with just two species in North America. Only the snapping turtle inhabits Colorado. The alligator snapping turtle of the southeastern United States can grow to more than 200 pounds and has a pink wormlike appendage on its tongue that it uses like a lure to attract prey.