The Intimate Lives of Chelonians

This week is shaping up to be 'invasion of turtle privacy' week for me... Sunday, on the job, I spied on a snapping turtle laying her eggs. Monday, I doubled down on my turtle voyeurism... Monday is typically a day off for me and, last Monday being a gorgeous late spring day, I decided to head over to the beautiful Bronx River Parkway Preservation, a location I frequent. Walking around the lovely Bronxville Pond, I noticed a commotion in the water:

On closer inspection, it turned out to be two very large common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) making, shall we say, the beast with two carapaces:

If you've never seen two aquatic turtles going at it, they are really acrobatic, or better yet, aquabatic:

They pitch, roll, and yaw like out of control airplanes, or rotate on all axes like 3D Tetris pieces, you'll see a head stick out, or a clawed foot:

While I was watching this erotobatic display, a gentleman who was walking around the pond with his son approached me and said, "I saw the splashing from across the pond and wondered what it was, because of the size of the ripples, I suspected a swan." He caught on pretty quickly regarding what was going on. His son, bless the child, offered an alternate explanation, "I think they're fighting."

Yeah... fighting... just like those Ninja Turtles... except (WARNING: you can never unsee this image if you click on this link, you've been warned) their weapons are much larger and much better concealed.