Natural foods: Omnivorous.
What Do Snapping Turtles Eat?
The simple answer is that snapping turtles will eat anything that they can catch. This includes fish, plants, birds, or toes
dangling in the water. They are extremely ravenous. They are also quite large animals as adults, easily attaining 0.5 m in
length and 65 kg (150 lbs) in mass in the case of the aligator snapping turtle. As a result, they are a top predator in many
aquatic systems.
Here is their diet in more detail:
Animal based food sources include but not restricted to: insects, crayfish, fiddler crabs, shrimp, water mites, clams,
snails, earthworms, leeches, tubificid worms, fresh water sponges, fish (adults, fry, & eggs), frogs & toads (adults,
tadpoles, & eggs), salamanders, snakes, small turtles, birds, small mammals, carrion.
Plant based food sources include but not restricted to: various algae, aquatic plants such as Elodea, Potamogeton,
Polygonum, Nymphaeca, Lemna, Typha, Vallisneria, Nuphar, Wolffia, and Najas.