{"id":157998,"date":"2026-02-17T03:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157998\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T03:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:33:14","slug":"askjaxtdy-what-happened-to-tonca-the-giant-turtle-at-mosh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/157998\/","title":{"rendered":"#AskJAXTDY | What happened to Tonca, the giant turtle at MOSH?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q: Tonca, an American alligator snapping turtle, was the unofficial mascot of the Museum of Science & History<\/a> in Jacksonville. He made a memorable impression on many who saw him through the years.<\/p>\n

Tonca was rescued from a pond in Mandarin in 1995 and began living in MOSH\u2019s Hixon Native Plant Courtyard, growing from 50 to 200 pounds. He was often celebrated in the summers with a weigh-in and checkup.<\/p>\n

Longevity is on Tonca\u2019s side. He celebrated his 59th birthday last July at MOSH. But now MOSH is closed, waiting to move to a new building<\/a> across the river, and its Southbank building is planned for demolition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That leaves many children and their parents curious about what\u2019s become of the massive turtle. Jacksonville Today reader Hannah B. asks: <\/p>\n

With the closure of the old MOSH building, what\u2019s happening to Tonca the snapping turtle? Very concerned 10-year olds at a birthday party this weekend need to know. <\/p>\n

A: We talked with Tyler Holder of High Reason, a marketing communications agency that oversees MOSH communications.<\/p>\n

When the museum closed in September, Holder says, Tonca was moved to the Reptile Preservation Institute<\/a> in Clay County, where he is \u201csafe and sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

The institute\u2019s director, Cody Bartolini helped move Tonca last fall from MOSH to his new habitat in Melrose. Bartolini says Tonca now weighs 210 pounds and has his own 9-foot circular, 3-foot deep pond outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s basically a boulder at the bottom of the pond,\u201d Bartolini says.<\/p>\n

Tonca lives happily immersed in the 72-degree water, staying by himself because he would eat any other turtles that might share his space. He gets meals of fish and rodents delivered by the staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is well-mannered and not unhappy,\u201d Bartolini says.<\/p>\n

MOSH transferred ownership of Tonca to the Reptile Preservation Institute, and there are no plans for him to return to MOSH.<\/p>\n

Visitors may see Tonca and many other reptiles during tours by appointment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: Tonca, an American alligator snapping turtle, was the unofficial mascot of the Museum of Science & History…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-157998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}