Air Date: Week of May 1, 2026

A snapping turtle’s age can be estimated by the rough size and condition of its shell. (Photo: Mark Seth Lender)

Now that it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, before long snapping turtles will be laying their eggs. Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender shares this encounter with one old mother turtle.

Transcript

CURWOOD: Now that it’s spring in the Northern Hemisphere, before long snapping turtles will be laying their eggs. Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender shares this encounter with one mother turtle.

The Snapping Turtle
Seney National Wildlife Refuge
© 2025 Mark Seth Lender
All Rights Reserved

Snapping turtles have taken over the dyke road. As it winds its way through the Seney National Wildlife Refuge the dyke separates the ponds, upper from lower, in a series of cascades. Like the locks on a canal. The snapping turtles crawl up here from those ponds, each one to dig a nest and lay her eggs. They set themselves, clawed feet grasping the earth. And they labor. And will not move. Until the purpose is complete. To drive this road you drive around them. They were here first.

The shells of snapping turtles tell their age. The measure of their overall size, of course and like tree rings, the concentric circles in the plates. It is much more than this. Putting a number to the years won’t tell you a thing compared to just - looking.

This one in front of me, big and battered, her heavy shell scored and cracked and wounded and healed, many times. Her eyes, the way they take the morning light, gemstones formed in the Earth’s core the color of brown diamond. Age when I look at her, is visceral. It backs towards the vanishing point. Only a snapping turtle. Nothing uncommon. But she has the scent of millennia.

CURWOOD: That’s Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender.

 

Links

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service | “Snapping Turtle”

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service | “Seney National Wildlife Refuge”

Michigan Department of Natural Resources | “Turtles”

Michigan State University Center for Lakes and Streams | “Freshwater Friends: Who’s Under That Shell”