Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Yesterday my husband rescued a turtle from his work, it somehow got inside the paint booth, it was dehydrated and in need of water; we know that it is a snapping turtle but not sure what kind...it looks like a alligator snapping turtle but its hard to tell because it is so small, I have been doing reasearch on them to find out..the problem is that the commin snapper can look alot like the alligator..I took it into the fish hatchery today to have someone look at it and no one there could even tell, the woman who looked at it thinks it might be an alligator because it has alot of the look of one but it also has alot of trait as a common snapper, the hatchey supplied me with food for the turtle and let me take it back home to care for the little guy and he is doing much better tonight, can anyone tell me how to tell the difference at this youg age, or does anyone have any good pics of the two turtles? I can find and good pics of turtles this young age to compare. some one please help! thank you.
Lily

There are tons of pics of both baby commons and alligators posted on this forum. Just start going through them and you will see examples of both.

I think the best example of a baby alligator snapper is animalman's picture.

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1.0 Alligator Snapper
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Alligator snapping turtles have an extra row of scales (plates) on the sides of the shell just above the marginals. Common snappers will only have the marginals, then the big top plates.

Dont make your detemination based on ridges on the shell, young common snapping turtles ridges look very prominent. Go by the supra marginal plates.

Image from "Amphibians and Reptiles in Kansas", third edition, revised by Joseph T. Collins.

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