Freakin' Prehistoric Dinosaur of a Turtle

Today while I was out driving through the country I saw the car ahead of me swerve wide to avoid a large black pile of something in the road. I slowed down to get a closer look and immediately pulled over. There was a freakin' prehistoric dinosaur of a turtle in the road, with a tail like a small alligator. His shell was easily 15 inches from front to back - he was easily the size of my steering wheel. The shell had points and spikes on it, but they were well-worn down. He was missing claws on his huge front paws, which were almost as big as my hands. I knew this kind HAD to be fierce - how else would you get to be so OLD in nature?

This is one of 2 photos I snapped of the prehistoric behemoth. I wish I'd looked for something like a drink can to place beside him for scale. He probably would have eaten it though.

I knew not to get too close. I was wearing Crocs on my feet for goodness sakes - they'd be like a gummy bear coating on my toes if he got ahold of them. I found a couple sticks, and held one before his massive jaws. He took the bait and took a bite. SNAP! he chomped down on the wood. (Yeah, my Crocs would have made a great snack.) I tried to drag him with the wood, but he let go. Again I brandished my stick, again he snapped (yikes!) and then he LET GO AGAIN. Slacker.

Recently we'd stopped to watch someone else help one of these beasts across a road slightly east of where I was. I wondered if this could possibly even be the same determined monster, headed west. the other guy had managed to get the beastie to chomp on a piece of wood and drag him across. If this was the same creature, he was tired of the game.

A truck approached from the other direction, and the driver rolled down his window. "Watch out," he warned, "Those things will bite!"

"Why do you think I have these?" I laughed and held up my sticks. "I'm also standing waaaaay back," I told him.

"That thing's prehistoric!" the man exclaimed, staring at the beast. He jumped out of his truck, and pulled out a magical shovel from under a tarp on the back. A really long handled shovel. Yes! He starting trying to herd the beastie across the road, and when that failed, he settled on flipping him and scooting him until he was safely in the grass off the roadside. (I wouldn't have done it that way, but then again, it wasn't my shovel.)

The internet tells me to try to tell the turtle's age I should look at the ridges on his shell. The points on this guy's shell was worn down like the sole of an old sneaker. It also tells me to examine his plastron, which is the shell on his belly. Right. "Excuse me, Mister Ancient Behemoth, could I have a look at your tummy?" Luckily when he was getting shovel-rolled across the road, I could see some of his belly. Younger turtles have darker plastrons. This guy was pretty well bleached out under there.

The internet also tells me: "If you need to move a snapping turtle quickly simply pick it up by the back edge of its carapace and carry it across the road holding its head away from you." I'm pretty sure there was no way I could lift a creature the size of my steering wheel by the back of his shell. He might slip out of it, if I could even have picked him up.

It's a good thing to help turtles across the road. The size of this guy will probably make my karmic piggy bank pop. Unless he was a real jerk of a turtle and was actually headed west because he was leaving his wife of 75 years... but then that would be his karma.

Notes: some more good info here