His head is large and covered somewhat with algae. The tail is long and looks remarkably similiar to the tail of an aligator. The heavy and thick carapace is marked by three rows of spikes. These dinosaur looking protrusions begin to lesson with age. This turtles carapace was somewhat smoother showing only remnents of the spiked armour he once displayed. For this reason plus his enormous size I reckon that this specimen was very old. I'm going to venture a guess of 30 years.
Alligator Snapping Turtles are, of course, egg layers. Once my friend and I were exploring along the banks of the Suwannee when we came across a clutch of eggs that i believed to be snake eggs. With my knife I pealed back a section ot the leathery egg. No snake. Instead a tiny, perfectly formed, very much alive Alligator snapping turtle. As I held his tiny body in my hand he turned his head from side to side snapping his beak. I apologized to the heavens for my careless aborting of this tiny life; for he had not reached an age at which he could live outside the shell.
When snorkleing with a giant bad boy like this; one does not generally venture to pull out a tape measure so I'm guesstimating here that this turtle was more than 36 inches from nose to tail. And likewise the guessed weight would be around 75-80 pounds.
He simply "walked" through the meadow of aquatic plants munching his way along. In the several minutes that I spent observing him he never once surfaced for air from the 12 or so foot depth of his beautiful home in the Rainbow River.
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