From reader Mark Sturtevant. This one isn’t too hard, and I’ll show the reveal in a few hours. His caption:
It has been a while since I did a ‘spot the…’, and so here is one. Can the readers spot the turtle? This was taken last Spring. As a bonus, can anyone identify the species? I live in a midwestern state in the U.S.
Spot, the turtle, is hiding behind Stripe, the racoon, in the pond scum. Hail to the pond scum, Master of the Universe!
He’s right there, sticking his head up for some oxygen.
Center left-to-right, about 20% up from the bottom.
Looks like a snapping turtle to me (we have loads of them too): Chelydra serpentina
Agreed and lots of them here as well.
Yes, snapper because of the bumpiness.
Yup, a snapper. Once while cleaning the aquarium of a snapper, I stupidly put the turtle in a Tupperware bowl on a window sill two stories high. Needless to say, the entire bowl with turtle in tow fell to the asphalt below. I looked down horrified, and then noticed the snapper was crawling away. Tough turtles, those snappers.
It’s yuge! Not an alligator snapping turtle (macrochelys temminckii) though…
Yeah, this one is pretty big. During the late spring/early summer we see a lot of them on the roads. I try to rescue what I can, and they try to amputate a finger for me in return. But one can’t hold it against them.
Because they swallowed it.
😀
cr
I once had a dog named Spot, but not a turtle.
Just the size of the head usually indicates Snapper but with the head up and the back coming out of the water as well, kind of what the snapper does.