is a solid gray, brown, black, or olive-green in color, and often covered with algae. It has radiating yellow patterns around the eyes, serving to break up the outline of the eyes to keep the turtle camouflaged. The eyes are also surrounded by a star-shaped arrangement of fleshy, filamentous "eyelashes". Though not verified, a alligator snapping turtle was found in Kansas in 1937, but the largest verifiable one is debatable. One weighed at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago was a 16-year resident giant alligator snapper weighing , sent to the Tennessee Aquarium as part of a breeding loan in 1999, where it subsequently died. Another weighing was housed at the Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago. Another large turtle reportedly weighed . The species generally does not grow quite that large. Breeding maturity is attained around , when the straight carapace length is around , but then the species continues to grow throughout life. Excluding exceptionally large specimens, adult alligator snapping turtles generally range in carapace length from and weigh from . Males are typically larger than females. 88 adult alligator snapping turtles averaged , 92 averaged , and 249 averaged . Usually very old males comprise the specimens that weigh in excess of per most population studies. Among extant freshwater turtles, only the little-known giant softshell turtles of the genera Chitra, Rafetus, and Pelochelys, native to Asia, reach comparable sizes. In mature specimens, those with a straight carapace length over , males and females can be differentiated by the position of the cloaca from the carapace, and by the thickness of the base of the tail. A mature male's cloaca extends beyond the carapace edge, a female's is placed exactly on the edge if not nearer to the plastron. The base of the tail of the male is also thicker as compared to that of the female because of the hidden reproductive organs. The inside of the turtle's mouth is camouflaged, and it possesses a vermiform (worm-shaped) appendage on the tip of its tongue used to lure fish, a form of aggressive mimicry. This turtle must be handled with extreme care and considered potentially dangerous. This species can bite through the handle of a broom and rare cases have been reported in which human fingers have been cleanly bitten off by the species. No human deaths have been reported to have been caused by the alligator snapping turtle. Diet The