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Hey, what's going on guys? Hanging out with my good buddy Fred Grunwell. He's got in his hand a very magnificent snapping turtle. This is the alligator snapper. And right here I have myself a little common snapper. So today, it's all about snapping turtles. We're going to have a pretty good time discussing the differences. This is Camp Kenan. All right. So as a boy growing up in Long Island, New York, these were some of the first turtles I ever had. I have a soft spot for these guys and these are the common snapper. We have
a common snapper here, right Fred? Right. This is a common. And this is a true Florida snapping turtle. And you can tell guys, if you get close and you look at the neck and this This is a true snapper disposition by the way. But if you look at the neck, there's really a lot of tubercles and projections on the neck. Whereas the common snapper does not have those. So that's one way to really know. If you get close to him, you can kind of see the neck has all those and man, snapping turtles have extremely long necks, a reduced plastron as you can
see here, and then an extremely long tail. That's why these guys have developed these powerful jaws to protect themselves. They really can't retract into their shell cuz look, all this fleshy part is left exposed. And there's his male parts coming out right now, right there. You can see sometimes when they get upset, they'll avert their penis and that'll also emit some musk. So these guys are ambush predators. They have that reduced plastron on the bottom, but the top shell is extremely effective when you're walking in the water. Now,
a cool thing about snappers, you get them out of the water, Fred, what do they want to do to you? Huh, they want to bite. Yeah, exactly. But in the water, I've actually stepped on snapping turtles and they have not bit me at all. So they feel very at home in the water, which is great. These guys are almost entirely aquatic. You'll only see females coming out of the water onto land to lay their eggs. And the only time males come out is if their ponds have dri- dried up. You to be quick with snapping turtles. And these are just little ones. So, what do you say
you go ahead, I'll hold this one. Why don't you go ahead and dig on in there and we'll pull out another type of snapping turtle that you'll find here in North America. And by the way, the snapping turtle goes from Maine all the way down throughout the Southeast United States into the central states all the way to Colorado and then south into northern South America. Many different subspecies of the snapping turtle and the genus is called Chelydra. And that means snake-like swamp thing cuz look at that head. It's certainly attached to a very snake-like neck.
I know he's in here. Oh, yeah. Just keep your fingers safe there, buddy. Make sure you got the right end, dude. Okay, that's Ah, there you go. Now, that's the true swamp thing right there, man. This is the alligator snapping turtle and so many people that don't really know reptiles always call the regular snapping turtle an alligator snapping turtle. Must frustrate you. Yeah, it happens every single time somebody calls for a snapper. It's a I've got an alligator snapper and well,
100% of the time down here it's a commoner. It's a regular old common or Florida snapping turtle. So, let's look at some of the differences here, man. They definitely have the reduced plastron just like these guys. They have the long tail, but the big main difference is the head. Look at the size of the head on the alligator snapping turtle. That is a massive set of jaws that you do not want to mess with. So, also attached to the head is a shorter neck. And you can actually pick this guy up. Show him. There you go. You can actually pick the gator snappers up by holding on
to the carapace. You never want to try that with a regular common snapper because they can actually come back here if they really were interested, which I think he might do. He's onto me. He's onto me, man. And I don't even want to get bit by this little maniac. But anyway, you always want to grab a common snapping turtle up by the rear of carapace. So, that's some of the differences right there. Now, I'm going to put these guys down and we're going to focus a little bit on the alley snapper. I'm going to hand these over to my buddy Kyle. Thanks, brother. All right. So, what's really exciting about these animals, Fred,
man, is that jaw. I mean, these guys are ambush predators. All they do is sit around and wait, and they wait with their mouths open. They look like the bottom of the oxbow or lake or river, whatever body of water, slow-moving body of water that they're in. So, what I want you to focus on now is probably the most famous thing about the alligator snapper, and that is its lure-like, worm-like tongue, right there. You can kind of see that tongue. Now, if I were to just touch, that would have made it would trigger a response from his jaws. Do you see that? And there's all
these old wives' tales that they can break a broom handle in half. Not true. They do have powerful jaws, but it's pretty hard to break a broom handle in half. They can, however, You've never seen that. Never seen it happen. He even took the bait one time. Fred, you wouldn't be insulted by me saying you're one of the old-timers, right? You've been around. Fred's been around, he's seen a lot, but we've never seen an alligator snapper break a broom handle in half. Not yet. But, if you're a little fish, this will definitely do it. Hey, let's stop messing around with these little
guys and see if we can show the folks at home what you really have as far as alley snappers. My goodness. Look Actually, that's a Florida. This is a Florida? And it's probably one of the largest It is by far the largest I've seen. So, look at this, guys. This is a full-grown Florida snapping turtle. So, you can see how big they are, but yet, here's the difference. See how smooth that carapace is? Doesn't have the gnarls like the alligator snapper. And if this guy wanted, he could get my head from here. So, let's put him down, and we'll show you what a full-size alligator snapping turtle looks like.
So, in order to show you the grand finale, folks, we have to come in here and fish for them, our buddy. And what you may not realize, but there's a saltwater crocodile on the other side of this pond just letting us do our thing. Ah, here we go. You got it, Fred. I love Fred's house. This one. Oh my god. Be careful, buddy. This one is missing his beak. Yep. Now how about that alligator down there? That's why that alligator's name is Snaggletooth. When that alligator was a baby, this guy bit a chunk out of his jaw. That's why that gator looks like that. Wow. later in
life, that gator took his beak off. So a little payback. So it doesn't look like this guy's having any problems being fed. But folks, this is a full-grown alligator snapper and believe it or not, they can get bigger. Fred, you actually had one that was a tad bit bigger, but unfortunately time ran out on that guy. He passed away. He was very old animal. How long have you had these animals? Uh I've had these for nearly 50 years. Um and they were almost this size uh when I got them. And um some of these old scars, I mean, some people say they're musket balls or who knows what
the real story is, but um these are definitely some old turtles. I would guess that they're probably around 100 year mark. Right. Um but in reality, there's no sure way to tell. Right. So um it's all just estimating, but uh we do know that they grow very old. And uh they do get actually twice the size, maybe then a little bit bigger. Um they definitely one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world, not the largest, but um in the USA they are. Yeah. And they are marvelous animals though. So they are true dinosaurs. So folks, even if he doesn't have a beak, I don't want to get bit by that guy. Thank you very much for the exciting finale.
Well, I'll tell you what, folks, we learned a little bit about the alligator snapper, the common snapper. So next time someone says that a common snapper is an alligator snapper, you make sure and show them this video. Don't forget to subscribe, click that link. Thanks again. Visit us at campcannon.com, Instagram. You might even see more pictures of uh Well, what's his name? Uh Snappy. I'll see more pictures of Snappy. See you next Tuesday, guys. Later.
