proteusolm:

A lot of the comments about how terrifying this is and how these will “bite a limb off” are bugging me a bit.

Alligator snapping turtles aren’t actually very dangerous at all provided you aren’t deliberately sticking your limbs in it’s mouth. They are quite weak swimmers, and very slow on land as well. Remember, these are ambush predators that have no reason to be fast, they just lay around and wait for something to swim into their mouth to check out it’s wormy looking tongue. Plus, their camouflage is generally enough to keep them from having to flee from predators. Even if they were speedy enough to chase down a person, they aren’t exactly inclined to. Like almost any other animal they want nothing to do with you.
Even if you accidentally stepped on one hiding underwater it’s not super likely you will be bitten, they can’t reach their head back and bite something that isn’t pretty much directly in front of their face unlike common snapping turtles.
Also, they are a threatened species so perhaps fear mongering about them is a bad idea.

These guys are in the category of animals that aren’t dangerous unless you screw around with them, but will very much hurt you if you mess with them. The worst they’ll do otherwise is lunge at you in an open-mouthed threat display (with no real intent to bite) if you bother them. To get one to bite you,  you’d have to actually try.