Turtle egg mystery

Near the pond, a critter unearthed and feasted on turtle eggs. The evidence was originally scattered several feet from the hole - I gathered a few of the shells back together for a picture.



Eggs in another nest nearby suffered a similar fate. I'm guessing that the culprit was a raccoon, skunk or opossum, but other turtle egg predators apparently include the fox, armadillo, mink, otter, and weasel.



I tried figuring out which species of turtle these eggs had belonged to, but didn't get very far. Here's where the (as yet to be invented) portable DNA analyzer would have come in so handy.

Several species can be ruled out since the eggs were spherical rather than elliptical, but other than that I couldn't find any key to turtle egg identification.

The eggs may have belonged to one of the two snapping turtles I saw recently, although they seem a bit small for that (not quite ping-pong ball size).



Undisturbed turtle nest.

In researching the turtle egg mystery, I came across an interesting story about a snapping turtle hatchling at the Hilton Pond site, where nest building is also discussed.

And found some more great snapping turtle pictures. (Eating a snake! Eating a fish!)

Even more good snapping turtle info.