Oh my gawd, being from Louisiana I have seen a good amount of snapping turtles in my life - some brown & ginormous, some tiny & crazy mean (lots of hissing and biting at me)... but this dark green shelled snapping turtle in the creek by my cabin is nothing like anything I have seen before.Quiet, still, almost docile... HUGE, and most importantly not brown - like a snapping turtle of fairy tales rather then the pre-historic swamp monster ones i have loved.
It's shell and skin coloring blended in perfectly with rocks in the creek, the top of the shell being mostly smooth except for the jagged sharp edges on the back end leading to the long alligator tale.
If ya aren't sure just how big this gi-gantor turtle is... i tossed a quarter onto it's back for referance ---> check it out in the pics below.... and tell me if you can find any ID on what type of snapper this is? I tried looking it up, but having been offline for a month my search skillz are a lil' rusty.
That is freakin' big and beautiful! (not the quarter, the turtle.) ;)
The literature is a bit vague, and it looks like "American" and "common" snapping turtles are often confused with each other. My guess is that this one is an American snapping turtle, and the brown one you remember could be a common one. Either way, snappers are all quite aggressive, so maybe you found this guy on a good day, a belly full of fish and after a couple of tokes of good weed. You totally messed with his head when you threw that quarter on its back though. He was all "Now quit it! You suck! I don't want your money!"
ReplyDeleteHey Gratu!
ReplyDeleteLOL
This is definitely the most calm snapper I ever met - i thought maybe it was a mom on her way to her nest of eggs possibly... or that this turtle may have actually not been around humans ever (or much).
I totally wanted to pick it up by it's tail like the "turtle man" and bring it to my pond - but kinda wussed out on that one. ;)
Did you find pictures of snappers that looked like this one? Under "American"... i am positive it is not "common"...
Well, maybe it's the other way around:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.snappingturtles.info/common.html
I think this might confirm it:
ReplyDeletehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common_Snapping_Turtle_1994.jpg
Cool!
ReplyDeleteHow funny they call it common!
you rock!