Keeping snapping turtles in China is not against the law. In China, snapping turtles are not a protected species and are mainly used for meat and ornamental purposes, but if they are in the United States, they are a protected species and you need to pay attention to them.

The real snapping turtle maintains the characteristics of the original turtle, with a peculiar mouth, dorsal armor shield, and red tongue. Appearance like a crocodile, the head is triangular, larger, the widest place is about half of the width of the dorsal armor; mouth front of the upper and lower jaws were hooked, like an eagle's beak, sharp and incomparable, can be bitten off the fingers of the people; mouth column into a "∧" shaped, open its big. True snapping turtle body large, dorsal armor up to about 31 inches long, weight up to 200 pounds. The dorsal armor shield is brown, 13 shields like 13 small mountains rolling, arranged in 3 rows, the edge of the dorsal armor has a lot of jagged protuberances, the eyes are long on both sides of the mouth, small but God, the head and neck have a lot of meat protuberances. The abdominal armor is smaller, in the shape of "ten". It has a bright red, forked, worm-like fleshy protuberance on the tongue, which is connected to the tongue by a rounded muscle in the center. The ends are able to move freely. The tail is thin and long, about 0.8 times the length of the dorsal armor (juvenile tortoises have longer tails, more than 1.5 times), hard like a steel whip, tail near the base of the 3 longitudinal rows of small mound-like horny protuberances. Its neck is not as long as that of the snake snapping turtle, but it is also thicker and has many fleshy protruding warts. The limbs are stout, webbed between the toes, which facilitates swimming and crawling. Unlike other turtles, its head and feet can not be retracted into the shell.