Snapping turtle pics

[improvius]

Someone mentioned snappers in another post, and reminded me of these pics we took last year:

We were driving home one day and passed something that looked like part of a car tire on the side of the road. It was right before our house, so after we got home and parked, I went back to take a closer look. It turned out to be a decent-sized snapping turtle. He must have wandered away from the drainage ditch that runs behind our property - we knew it was full of frogs, but had no idea it was home to something this big! Luckily he was completely unhurt - just a bit confused and angry.

I was surprised by just how fast and agressive these turtles can be when they want to. We managed to get him into a cat carrier using a scrap piece of lumber. Then we took him to a larger nearby creek, where hopefully he will have more room to swim around and less chance of wandering into the road. And I'm sure the local frogs are quite happy without him around.

Most interesting to me was the large patch of algae covering the back of his shell.

-Imp

 

[craig.a.c]

Thats a good looking turtle. From the first pic it looked to be quit big, but then you scroll down to the next 2 and he is small. Very cute none the less. Good job on the rescue.

 

[improvius]

The ground in the last 2 pics slopes down to the water pretty sharply, so I think it makes him look a bit smaller than he really is. I promise you that when I was trying to get that hissing, biting, armored bundle of hate to go inside the carrier, he was HUGE.

-Imp

 

[SLACkra]

aggressive things. i read an articles in a reptile magazine back in canada and there was a guy hugging his pet snapper. with its head resting on his shoulder/chest area. this thing could easy take a chunk out o fhis neck if he wanted to and kill him. only tame snapper i have ever heard of.

cool turtle

andrew