tortoise/turtle?
 

found this behind my shop today. almost squished it with a skidloader moving some stuff around. never saw one like this before. what is it?
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box turtle.

thanks

no problem.

there are a few different species/sub-species, but that is definitely a box turtle. i caught MANY of them when i lived in kentucky and i've had a couple as 'pets' since then. cool little buggers.

looks to be a female eastern box turtle according to a couple web sites. they can live 40-50 years. wow

wrong.. 3 toed box turtle

what happened to the fourth toe?!?

Probably eaten by an Alligator Snapping Turtle.:D

It's good to find Box Turtles Luck will follow you. They are pretty cool. Found lots of those growing up In central Indiana.

These are are not lucky. They have a nasty disposition
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^^^^ Snapping turtle? Dang, they arre mean!

I rescued a box turtle about that size trying to cross a busy 4 lane road. I brought it to work and the bosses wife put it her back yard. The very next day in a different part of town I found another turtle about to commit turtle-cide by trying to cross a even busier road. That one went to the bosses wife. The next day she reported with glee that it was a turtle orgy in her back yard. She said those two turtles mated all day. She had over 15 baby turtles in short order. She had them for over a year before she got tired of messing with them. She would set them free one at a time in different parts of a large refuge behind their house and play Born Free on her iPod.

Stupid people in Florida (I know, I know) get killed every year by stopping in traffic, getting out of thier car to help a freaking turtle cross the road.:rolleyes:

I picked up the turtles before they got to the busy road.

You are right, it would be very stupid to get out in traffic to save a turtle.

These make great pets out West:

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Desert Tortoises - and they love hibiscus!

very cool.

Well in theory...all drivers must be in control of their vehicle and be able to stop anytime. That said - the driver who stops needs to give the driver behind some warning....at least brake lights and turn signal - but even better an arm out the window. Everyone needs to be paying attention.

If someone gets killed because they are oblivious to the above common sense practices....maybe the world is a better place without them.

A lot of wildlife are killed due to dumba$$ drivers who aren't paying attention.

Karma may be a ***** but it also thins the herd...:D

I stop for turtles, squirrels, racoons, possums, bears, you-name-it....poor animals are getting squeezed out as it is - someone has to look out for them.

So does my cat! Really any kind of flowers..tears them up!

Turtles are cool.

Those are so cool! If I ever live somewhere friendly to them I'll have to get one....

I love turtle soup!!

:)

just so we are clear..tortoises and turtles are different.

tortoises are cool pets. love to get a sulcata, but i dont have the energy.

i have my eye out for a decent pair of leopards. i can keep them indoors.

'Sposedly an endangered species, I heard you can get in lots O'trouble if you don't have permits or are not treating them the way the BLM or fish and game like.

These were bread in captivity with all the right permits. About the only thing you cant do is sell them or release them in the wild.

BTW - I don't think endangered, but threatened. But I could be wrong.

Yer prolly right, it was something like that.

friend of mine caught an 80lb one yesterday. turned it over to an aquarium/zoo

About ten years ago we saw turtles on the road around here everyplace. It lasted about 2 weeks. The carnage was awful, and I probably picked up a dozen on the route to work in that time. In the 8 years before and 10 years since, I've probably seen one on that route. I don't know what the deal was. It was like they all got the call from the mothership and started walking to the rendezvous point like zombies.

like many animals, they have preferred pathways, even trails, they use

in some places people have put in special "underpasses" to avoid the carnage - Florida was at the forefront for such crossings a few years ago

Many more years ago than that, driving through Missouri on the way to CA, daylight, farmland, before interstate hwys, midweek and the only car on whatever 65 mph, 2 lane state highway it was, probably doing at least 65, wife napping in the passenger seat of the van.

Noticed a discoloration of the asphalt up ahead, braked to probably 45 and the van began sliding as it turned out that thousands and thousands of tortoises the size of a...cut down, little kid's crash helmets? were crossing the road!

The crunching, popping sounds were sickening. I got the van down to about 25 and, seeing the color change back to asphalt not far ahead, so I drove through them. Or stop In their midst and wait until the migration, or whatever, was over.

But, there was no sign of that happening soon from the looks of the undiminished numbers of tortoises entering the road. And we both felt like we we'd been thrust into a horrifying Hitchcock movie so I drove through them. Very sad, but...

Had tortoises in OH and PA when I was a kid, but never saw anything like this!

Do tortoises migrate?

Why does a tortoise cross the road?

Seriously, all the above is true and you're the first person I've run accross who knows what I'm talking about.

migrate? that is a sort of technical term -- they definitely move around to water sources, etc.

i like turtles.

I ran over one when I was in my teens thinking it was a just debris, since then I've saved about 20..Some have been mean and scary, but they were on a certain death wish without a LiL help..

Migration?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1339611263.jpg

I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's a turtle with a bunny on it's head!

http://1funny.com/wp-content/uploads...n-a-turtle.jpg

Tons of box turtles here...there are times, usually after a few days of rain in the Spring, when the turtles hit the roads to get warm and dry. I always stop and put them on the side of the road the seem to be headed in.

Snapping Turtles, Terrapins, are a different deal, think Jurassic Park. They are not to be f'ed with. They will look you right in the eye.

They love to nest in the manure piles I tend on the farm. I don't let them.

ok, here is my true story re Snapping Turtles:

as a kid, I lived in a swamp (a subdivision in an area of BTR, Louisiana called "Broadmoor" and it literally was a broad moor)

as kids we rustled around the whole area thru the mud, built rafts to cross the wetter parts, etc.

one day we found this really neat turtle! it was big too! we split into 2 groups - one group to watch the big turtle and keep it from running away, and the other group to go fetch the very biggest red wagon in the neighborhood

we put the big turtle in the red wagon - it just barely fit and kida hung over the sides, since it was so big

then, being kids, we teased it with sticks

suddenly, with blinding speed it shot its head out and bit one of the sticks - it snapped the stick in half even though it was a nice strong broom stick

Snapping Turtle

we did NOT tell any parents

Lmfao!

I prefer tortoises......my little red foot is a hoot and I just added a tree frog to his vivarium.

Here's a local Diamondback Terrapin heading back into the mangroves....

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