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I was reading the local paer and saw this:
Giant snapping turtles cropping up in mid-valley

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2008/07/01/news/community/6aaa04_snappingturtle.txt

I'm going to start building my maser cannon now.  This is why I went into science!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/tickygeorge/_gamera.jpg)

-Ed

Man, if they are that freaked out by a regular snapper, I wonder what they would do if one of our good old Southern Alligator Snappers made its way up there . . .?  Those guys can weigh ove 200 pounds!!

About 20 years ago, I encountered a snapping turtle stopped in the middle of the road, perhaps resting as he crawled across the quiet but high-speed road, and I pulled over to assist the bugger across...  At first I was unsure what it was, but Oh, that was a BIG UGLY  turtle, he must have weighed 50 lbs., and as he snapped at me and my friend, he jumped in the air... I imagine he maybe jumped 8 inches or so, and we sure jumped back!!  The thing was extremely aggressive.  My friend and I found a branch and carefully nudged the turtle into the shallow ditch he seemed headed toward, and wouldn't yah know if he didn't immediately start climbing back toward the road.   :hatred:   :question:  We left.  

Alligator snappers. I remember getting a good, close look at one of those at the zoo. Not something I'd want to meet without the barrier between us.

But that snapper in the picture looks no bigger than any I've seen. Looks like a nasty little bugger, but hardly a monster.

Hey, in Oregon we are blessed by a lack of bad weather or nasty critters (minus hippies).   So we have to take what we can get!
-Ed

Since when the hell was a turtle a amphibian? On my planet it's a reptile! Morons! Does this paper not have a fact checker?

Snapper are common around here, both the common regulars and alligators.

OH NO!  IT'S GAMERA!!!

 :buggedout:

Yikes: that mouth! I DO NOT want that thing to bite me.  :buggedout:

Yeah, my first thought when I saw the photo was "Aaaw. Lookit the cute baby!"  :teddyr:

We have a huge alligator snapper that lives in our creek. He crawls up to the yard when ever there's a heavy rain to wait it out. He's at least twice as big as the one in the photo, if not larger. It drives the dogs crazy, but they've learned to keep their distance. Everytime I see him the ten year old in me comes out and I have to try to make him bite a stick - which he always obligingly does.

We were always told if one bit you it wouldn't let go until it thundered, even if you cut its head off. We later wondered where all the people were wandering around with snappers attached to their hands waiting for a thunderstorm. We finally concluded they must be too embarrassed to go out in public like that.

These are the guys you don't want to play with ... these guy looks to be about 100 lbs.

(http://www.dausettrails.com/snapturtle.jpg)

Not me, just a google image. I seen bigger at Reelfoot Lake and the swamps around here ... no I'm not going to catch one.



I just re read that article and in addition to not knowing a amphibian from a reptile. I don't think there biologist know the diet of a snapping turtle, they claimed it ENDANGERS ducks and ducklings ... I snapper lays on the bottom with its mouth open and has a little appendage in it's mouth that looks like a worm and fish swim into it's mouth to get the worm and BAM the mouth SNAPS shut soon as it feels a bite on the worm like appendage.

If I recall ducks eat mainly shore grasses and algae. The snapper is a opportunist not a stalker. Never heard of a snapper eating a duck, but it is Oregon and things are different out there.

Now you know why my "head explodes" when there is no editing.  "Fact checking" would be an editor's job, or a job the editor would delegate. 

That pic should go over to Humorous Captions. Very inspiring.

Get in my belly!

(http://www.dausettrails.com/snapturtle.jpg)

"Alright, wiseguy. YOU tell him to turn his head and cough!"

I wrote the writer of the article and this is the reply ...

I said  ... "A turtle is NOT a amphibian, it's a reptile."


I replied ...

You wrote the article, you own the error. Don't pass the buck.

It does happen. There is nothing more maddening than having someone screw up your story after you've filed it. Just as Cheeze said, an editor might have made the mistake, but the writer's name is on it. It's happened to me a few times that I've noticed over the years, usually after the fact, although I've occasionally been able to fix it in time. Since I don't usually have time to read everything after it's printed, who's to say it hasn't happened many more times. Most of the time, for me, it's been an editor or proofreader who is trying to clean up an awkward sentence without realizing that the wording is meant to convey a very specific meaning. Making the sentence cleaner changes the meaning.

I have been fortunate in that nobody has done anything as dumb as calling a turtle an amphibian.

This does remind me of a mistake by someone else I caught a couple of months ago, just as it was headed for the press. A nature photo of a wild turkey, with the cutline suggesting that it's a sign of spring.  :bouncegiggle:  I had to point out that turkeys are year-round birds. Have you ever seen a flock of turkey's flying south? No? There's a good reason for that. It was fixed fairly quickly.

I wrote the writer of the article and this is the reply ...
I said  ... "A turtle is NOT a amphibian, it's a reptile."

:bouncegiggle: If you'll pardon my expression, you're a real SOB...  :bouncegiggle:  I will karma ya sometime when we make nice nice.   :bouncegiggle: 

AndyC, right you are again.   :wink:

Are we not nice-nice? I know I'm a SOB, but I'm a lovable SOB.

Poor thing looks like it's getting violated by those handlers.    :teddyr:

The gaping mouth helps. "Ooooo, not there!"

OK, jeez fella my prostate is feeling fine .... really it is.

:bouncegiggle:  That is the best caption so far.   :thumbup:

Those big alligator snappers can live to be over 200 years old, you know.  I read an interview with a guy who used to trap them for turtle soup until they got rather scarce . . . he said that as late as the early 70's, it was not unusual to kill a large alligator snapper and find a flint arrowhead buried in its shell . . . Indians in Louisiana quit using flint arrowheads in the early 1700's.  Those were some seriously OLD turtles the Cajuns were eating!

Hey thanks!  :teddyr:

Sweet Jesus, is that Morla the Ancient One?