In the backyard of the house I'm renting, there's a swimming pool that is not in use because of structural problems. It's uncovered, so there's a few feet of water in the deep end. Leaves and pine needles fall in, so the water has a nice brown color. We've seen tadpoles in the spring and a few big frogs survived to munch on mosquito larvae, no doubt. My son was a big hit at preschool when he took in a dozen tadpoles last spring.

Anyway, I was taking a rake to the water to get some of the pine needles and leaves out, and I raked up some eggs. They are white, oval, about 2.5 cm x 3.5 cm. I've been trying to find out what could have laid them, but Google was of limited use. I looked around a pond egg identifier page, but had no luck - most of the info was on frog eggs and fish eggs, and I figure these are probably reptile. I thought they were snapping turtle eggs - have seen one on the property - but those eggs are round.

Any ideas?

If they are "leathery", they are probably some kind of snake egg.

Snapping tutles are no joke. Them's is bad reptiles.

pictures?

I was thinking it'd be cool to have pix.

Lemme see what I can do after work...

Need live cam for this one too.

Whatever hatches out of those eggs, a 12-gauge shotgun should be able to handle it.

Or were you considering a big-ass omelet ?

Nahh. They're harmless unless you start bugging them. Most animals are more afraid of people than vice versa, for good reason.

Yeah, but usually bugging a snapping turtle happens unwittingly -- like stepping on them. Then *CRUNCH* you've lost a toe.

A snapping toetle?