Giant jawless snapping turtle gets a crittercam

*Disclaimer*
This video was entirely produced by The Hartford Courant newspaper. They own all the rights to it. I have uploaded it because it features a research project I am working on.

The snapping turtle research team captures a 39 pound snapping turtle and attaches National Geographic's CritterCam to get a "turtle's eye view".

For more information and updates on the project, go to:
http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/eebedia/index.php/Snapping_turtle_research_...

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• snapper
• snapping
• turtle
• Chelydra
• serpentina
• National
• Geographic
• Society
• Our
• Piece
• of
• the
• Pie
• Riverfront
• Recapture
• UConn
• uconntv

[IgnoredComment]

how does it snap without jaws?

[Jobediah]

@IgnoredComment The snap is a stereotyped behavior involving neck extension as well as jaw opening and closing. This guy was very effective at the first part– it was able to scare a 16 pound snapper we put it in with as well as all the people who were around. Its true that he couldnt produce any bite force (since he had no jaw), but the snap was still doing its job of scaring everybody in sight!

[mrpat1]

poor dude i love snapping turtles..how will it eat?

[Jobediah]

We don't know yet, but he's been that way for a long time, and he's really fat, so don't worry, old Jawless has tricks up his sleeve.

[Pigratcroc]

Why does it not have a jaw?

[Jobediah]

We *think* that it took a baited hook which then caused an infection that rotted the lower jaw off. That's an educated guess.

[Coribec]

He's got a pretty stupid look on his face.

[Focoist911]

watch?v=adgduwI1xsc

See the new CritterCam in action there. They use a suction-cup to fix the camera now which releases automatically after a period of time and floats to the surface and broadcasts RF so they can locate it and retrieve the footage and camera back. Pretty awesome but also very sad. International Bankers are destroying the planet. These crims must be arrested and overthrown.

[Jobediah]

I put a link in the description box you can follow to get all the updates on this project. There are several news reels as well as a 16 minute clip of the footage from this deployment.