What Is the Habitat for Snapping Turtles?

Five species of snapping turtles are found in North America. All are aquatic, freshwater species that prefer rather murky, deep, slow-moving waters. Depending on their range and the climate, some come to land to bask, while others spend most of their lives in the water. All snapping turtles share an omnivorous diet largely made up of fish, frogs and aquatic plants, depending on what they can hunt and forage in the water around them.

  1. Northern Common Snapping Turtle

    • The Northern Common Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina serpentina, lives in southern and eastern Canada and throughout the eastern United States. It may be found in any still or slow-moving body of fresh water from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and southern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico in Florida and the Texas coast, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains. Maine is probably the northern edge of its range. This snapping turtle is highly aquatic and spends most of its life in the water, except when it crawls out on logs or land to sun itself. The juveniles prefer weedy shallows.

    Florida Snapping Turtle

    • The Florida Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina osceola, lives in the southern United States, in and around peninsular Florida. In may inhabit any body of fresh water. It is primarily a bottom dweller, where it buries itself in mud with only eyes showing. The Florida Snapping Turtle does not come onto land to bask.

    Mexican Snapping Turtle

    • The Mexican Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina rossignoni, lives in Mexico from central Veracruz through Guatemala to Caribbean Honduras. It inhabits deep freshwater bodies. In Guatemala, this snapping turtle prefers quiet oxbows and backwater sloughs. It is frequently encountered in small, slow-moving tributaries that run into large, open waters, but it also inhabits large, deep rivers. It shies away from clear water, preferring to hide in debris or vegetation in murky water. In Central America, the snapping turtle is predominantly nocturnal and completely aquatic, not emerging to bask.

    Ecuadorian Snapping Turtle

    • The Ecuadorian Snapping Turtle, Chelydra serpentina acutirostris, lives from northern Honduras, eastern Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama, then Pacific Colombia and Ecuador, and south to the Gulf of Guayaquil. The preferred habitat for this turtle is small, slow-moving, soft-bottom swamps, streams, lakes and river edges. It chooses water with little aquatic vegetation but many submerged logs.

    Alligator Snapping Turtle

    • Macroclemys temminckii, the Alligator Snapping Turtle, is found in deep, dark freshwater bodies in Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi and Texas, especially in rivers and channels that empty into the Gulf of Mexico. It also inhabits swamps and bayous, burying itself in the muddy bottoms.