THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY

Reptilia    Testudines    Chelydridae  

Western Alligator Snapping Turtle
Macrochelys temminckii (Harlan, 1835)

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 The standard English name is changed from Alligator Snapping Turtle to differentiate it from the Suwannee Alligator Snapping Turtle. Western Alligator Snapping Turtle is in use, e.g., Munscher et al. (2021, Herpetology Notes 14: 985–994) and Turtle Taxonomy Working Group (2021, Chelonian Research Monographs (8): 1–472).

Range maps are based on curated specimens and provided gratis by CNAH.
(Created by Travis W. Taggart; Version: 2023.04.09.21.53.11)
Download GeoJSON polygon range file: - 1.51 MB

Province/State Distribution:
USA: Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Mississippi Missouri Oklahoma Tennessee Texas

First instance(s) of published English names:
Temminck's Snapper (Macroclemys temminckii: Gray, John E. 1856. Catalogue of shield reptiles in the collection of the British Museum. Part I. Testudinata (Tortoises). Taylor and Francis, London, England. 79pp.); Mississippi Snapper (Macrochelys lacertina: Jordan, David Starr. 1876. Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States: Including the District East of the Mississippi River, and North of North Carolina and Tennessee, Exclusive of Marine Species. Jansen, McClurg, and Company, Chicago, Illinois.. 342pp.); Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys lacertina: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Caoune (Macrochelys lacertina: Yarrow, Henry C. 1882. Check list of North American Reptilia and Batrachia with catalogue of specimens in U. S. National Museum. Bulletin of the United States National Museum (24):1-249); Alligator Snapper (Macrochelys lacertina: Davis, N. S. Jr. and Frank L. Rice. 1883. Descriptive catalogue of North American batrachia and reptilia, found east of Mississippi River. Illinois Natural History Survey Bulletin 1(5):71); Alligator Snapper (Macrochelys lacertina: Davis, N. S., and Frank L. Rice. 1883. List of Batrachia and Reptilia of Illinois. Bulletin of the Chicago Academy of Sciences 1(3):25–32); Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temminckii: Hay, Oliver P. 1892. Batrachians and Reptiles of the State of Indiana. Pages 409-624 in 17th Annual Report of the Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources, William B. Burford, Printer and Binder, Indianapolis, Indiana. pp.); Logger-head (Macrocheyls lacertina: Beyer, George. 1900. Louisana herpetology. Proceedings of the Louisiana Society of Naturalists 1897-1899():24-46); Caouana (Macrocheyls lacertina: Beyer, George. 1900. Louisana herpetology. Proceedings of the Louisiana Society of Naturalists 1897-1899():24-46); Alligator-snapper (Macrochelys temminckii: Stejneger, Leonhard H. and Thomas Barbour. 1917. A Checklist of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp.); Alligator Snapper (Macrochelys temminckii: Strecker, John K., Jr. 1922. An annotated catalogue of the amphibians and reptiles of Bexar County, Texas. Bulletin Scientific Society of San Antonio (4):1-31);

Taxon Links:

  
Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
  
The Reptile Database
  
NatureServe
  
iNaturalist
  
GenBank
  
USGS - Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

Selected References:
1835 Harlan, Richard. Medical and Physical Resources; Or Original Memoirs in Medicine, Surgery, Phsyiology, Geology, Zoology, and Comparative Anatomy. Lydia R. Bailey, Philadelphia. 163pp.
1955 Smith, Hobart M. The generic name of the alligator snapper turtle. Herpetologica 11:16
1957 Auffenberg, Walter. The status of the turtle Macroclemys floridana Hay. Herpetologica 13:123-126
1958 Smith, Hobart M. The generic name of the alligator snapper turtle. Herpetologica 11(1):16
1981 Clarke, Robert F. A record of the Alligator Snapping Turtle, Macroclemys temminckii (Testudines: Chelydridae), in Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 84:59-60
1989 Pritchard, Peter C. H. The Alligator Snapping Turtle: Biology and conservation. Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. pp.
1993 Shipman, Paul A. Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temminckii) Habitat Selection. Movements. and Natural History in Southeast Kansas. Thesis. Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas. 101pp.
1993 Shipman, Paul A. Natural history of the Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temminckii) in Kansas. Kansas Herpetological Society Newsletter (93):14-17
1993 Lovich, J. E. Macroclemys. M. temminckii. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles (562):1-4
1995 Shipman, Paul A., David R. Edds, and Linn E. Shipman. Distribution of the Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temminckii) in Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 98:83-91
1999 Roman, Joseph, Steven D. Santhurr, Paul E. Moler, and Brian W. Bowen. Population structure and cryptic evolutionary units in the Alligator Snapping Turtle. Conservation Biology 13(1):135-142
1999 Roman, Joseph, Deette Walker, and Brian W. Bowen. Genetic tools for forensic identification of snapping turtle (Malaclemys temminckii and Chelydra serpentina) products in commercial trade . Herpetological Review 30(4):218-219
2001 Riedle, J. Daren. The ecology of the alligator snapping turtle, Macrochelys temminckii, in Oklahoma. Thesis. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. 121pp.
2005 Riedle, J. Daren, Paul A. Shipman, Stanley F. Fox, and David M. Leslie, Jr. Status and distribution of the Alligator Snapping Turtles, Macrochelys temminckii, in Oklahoma. Southwestern Naturalist 50(1):79-84
2006 Pritchard, Peter C. H. The Alligator Snapping Turtle: Biology and conservation. Revised edition. Krieger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida. pp.
2008 Shipman, Paul A., and J. Daren Riedle. Status and distribution of the Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) in southeastern Missouri. Southeastern Naturalist 7:331-338
2008 Riedle, J. Daren, Paul A. Shipman, Stanley F. Fox, Joseph C. Hackler, and David M. Leslie, Jr. Population structure of the Alligator Snapping Turtle, Macrochelys temminckii, on the western edge of its distribution. Chelonian Conservation and Biology 7(1):100-104
2008 Riedle, J. Daren, Day B. Ligon and Kerry Graves. Distribution and management of Alligator Snapping Turtles, Macrochelys temminckii, in Kansas and Oklahoma. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 111(1/2):21-28
2009 Chandler, Christopher H. and Fredric J. Janzen. Phylogenetic position of the Snapping Turtles (Chelydridae) based on nucleotide sequence data. Copeia 2009(2):221-226
2010 Echelle, Anthony A., J. C. Hackler, J. B. Lack, S. R. Ballard, Joseph Roman, Stanley F. Fox, D. M. Leslie, Jr., R. A. Van Den Bussche. Conservation genetics of the Alligator Snapping Turtle: Cytonuclear evidence of range-wide bottleneck effects and unusually pronounced geographic structure. Conservation Genetics 11:1375-1387
2014 Thomas, Travis M., Michael C. Granatosky, Jason R. Bourque, Kenneth L. Krysko, Paul E. Moler, Tony Gamble, Eric Suarez, Erin Leone, Kevin M. Enge, and Joe Roman. Taxonomic assessment of Alligator Snapping Turtles (Chelydridae: Macrochelys), with the description of two new species from the southeastern United States. Zootaxa 3786(2):141-165
2015 Folt, Brian and Craig Guyer. Evaluating recent taxonomic changes for Alligator Snapping Turtles (Testudines: Chelydridae). Zootaxa 3947(3):447-450
2018 Riedle, J. Daren, Aaron J. Place, and Steven D. Thompson. The westernmost occurrence of the Alligator Snapping Turtle and its implications for conservation Collinsorum 7(1):19-20
2021 Rhodin, Anders G. J., John B. Iverson, Roger Bour, Uwe Fritz, Arthur Georges, H. Bradley Shaffer, and Peter Paul van Dijk. Turtles and tortoises of the world during the rise and global spread of humanity: First checklist and review of extinct pleistocene and holocene chelonians. Chelonian Research Monographs (8):1-472
2021 Munscher, Eric, Valeria Gladkaya , Jeff Stein, Brian P. Butterfield , Rachel Adams , Jordan Gray , Arron Tuggle, Andrew S. Weber, Kelly Norrid , and Andrew Walde Movements of Western Alligator Snapping Turtles, Macrochelys temminckii (Testudines, Chelydridae), in an urban ecosystem: Buffalo Bayou, Houston, Texas Herpetology Notes 14:985-994
2021 Enge, Kevin M., Bradley S. Smith, Travis M. Thomas , Brooke l. Talley , Terri Cannon, and Daniel Catizone. Coastal observations of alligator snapping turtles in the florida panhandle. Florida Field Naturalist 49(3):138-147
2025 Riedle, J. Daren The return of a giant: Restoring the Alligator Snapping Turtle to Kansas Kansas Wildlife & Parks Magazine 81(6):10-18

THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY — Accessed: Monday 19 May 2025 19:17 CT