Some of the zoo’s I’ve been to in my home state has American Alligators in their zoos and they have Alligator Snapping Turtles in the same habitat with the alligators
Alligator and False gharial
- Thread starter Orque41
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They tend to not go after each other.
The main issue is that gators tend to get a lot bigger, and you can have several of them. They're also more "active" meaning that, the alligator snapping turtle ends up finding a place to hang out that's difficult to see for visitors. You also have issues if they ever breed that the turtles young get eaten by the bigger gators, and the turtles, sometimes, attack the young gators, which draws in the larger gators to attack it.
It's easier to put them in smaller exhibits than the gators...oddly enough, most places have either a few smaller ones or one big one in an exhibit about the size of the in game exhibits...
I would keep this particular example out of the discussion because they are only distantly related to one another and their gigantism is due to convergent evolution resulting from being isolated in separate island chains (called insular gigantism). They are both more related to the smaller mainland tortoises of their respective continents than to each other.
I expected a small habitat for this species but after a quick search : It looks more like an exhibit species for PZ than a habitat one.
Interesting species for PZ if they would add it.
Yeah, the Common Snapping Turtle needs a bigger exhibit than the Alligator Snapping Turtle, even though it's a smaller animal when at the upper end...for those who want a pet one, the common is more "pet" in interactions than the Alligator Snapping Turtle, though they don't look quite as cool.
Not natively...at least for what most view as snapping turtles. There's a type of turtle native to Australia that is referred to as a snapping turtle, but it's an herbivore. The Elseya turtles...
The Alligator Snapping Turtle can easily get a shell that's a yard across...and can bite through bone. Though they, normally, won't attack anything close to their own size or bigger unless threatened...or parts get put into their mouth, and they'll bite down without thinking about it.
Their big thing is that snapping turtles are, largely, ambush predators...though the common snapping turtle will munch vegetable matter as well.
