Sign up for free

Newsletters

Once a month
get new photos
and expert tips.

Photography
Main Photo Galleries Wallpapers Photo of the Day Photographers Photo Tips Buy Prints

Baby Alligator Snapping Turtle, Florida, 1999

A baby alligator snapping turtle in a Florida swamp perches on the outsize skull of a record-breaking ancestor. At its largest, the monstrous reptile weighed a whopping 250 pounds (113 kilograms). With its spiked shell, beaklike jaws, and thick, scaled tail, this species is often referred to as the "dinosaur of the turtle world."

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Swamp Thing: Unmasking the Snapping Turtle," March 1999, National Geographic magazine)

Buy a print of this photo.

Photograph by George Grall