Turtle Crossin' 5-20-13, UPDATE 5-26-2014 Crossin

can any of you tell if this is male or female. They have been going out to the pond the same time of year for many many years.

I think they are all females going to lay their eggs at the pond. Then they go back to the lake. Ive seen them laying eggs before in the backyard on a birm. That berm was some tough diggin to. It covered the eggs up and took off.

Cool! We have those big boogers here too. If we could just keep folks from killing them, we'd have even more. I really like snappers as they look so prehistoric, especially when out making a cross country trek. I rescued one big as a kid's saddle during the drought and had to carry him half a mile or more to the next pond. Man, I was tuckered by the time I got him back in the water *L*....Mel

I think the females are out now Brad.Lookin to lay eggs.Males don't need to leave water.Snappers dig in clay that would strain hydrualic equipment.5-6 feet down is common.They are very well populated here.I think they lay and hatch at a high rate.I had a Spuds Mckenzie dog that used to pick fights w/snappers.He often had terrible bruises from the bite.Worse were the cuts on his nose where he grabbed the head w/good reflex and the turtle pulled his head back in the shell shearing his nose.Idiot stick dog,never came close to winning that battle.Hell on snakes too.

See the thick tree like tail? Brad's animal seems to be a male, perhaps on walkabout looking for a little cloaca.

Male /female??I only see females out of the water in spring
"Male and female common snapping turtles are very similar in appearance, and so are difficult to tell apart based on external characteristics (5). However, males tend to have a more concave plastron (4) and are generally bigger than females (3) (4) (5) (6). Hatchling common snapping turtles have an almost round carapace (3) (6), and are either black or dark brown, often with white spots under the edge of the carapace or on the plastron (5). This white patterning disappears as the turtle gets older (3). Young common snapping turtles hatch with an ‘egg tooth’, a point on the end of the snout which is used to break through the eggshell when hatching. This is usually shed within the first three weeks (6)."

The girls are the nomads
"Female snapping turtles may make considerable migrations to find a suitable nesting site, with the longest recorded round trip being a massive 16 km."

last year I was doing a landscaping job around the same lake and hit a nest of turtle eggs up by the house and these little guys/gals were very close to popping out of the shell. Hit one with the shovel and it opened up and it looked like he/she was ready to go.

The ground was rock hard. Had a hard time even with a shovel. Dont know how the little guys/gals would of make it to the surface. They were around 6-8 inches down and the dirt was like concrete. I covered them back up and I sh$t you not they were all gone the next day, only the shells were there.

yeah the snappers out here if you try and pick them up by their shell they lock down and I wouldnt of ever believed they are as strong as they are.
I have to keep my dog in when I see them because she will go right up to them. They got nailed once really good when I let her out in the morning before I went to work. It was dark out and I thought a coyote got a hold of her. Was suprised when I seen the big ol snapper out there in the driveway.

That was written in part by someone who was simply regurgitating text from some popular book about snapper.

They are remarkably easy to see the gender. I can see it in the picture.

In turtles of the world Ernst & barbour tell us that males have a vent outside the rim of the carapace and females the vent is inside the rim.

Personal experience with having handled a dozen or so adults also showed males with a far thicker tail, as shown in Brad's picture. This to store the penis.