he has seen some things.

the stories I could tell you, son

he's made of fucking prisms

I actually wish I had a better picture of his shell because it was all these little pyramids and it was so cool to look at... but he took a snap at the guy holding him after this, so we let him go back to his tank.

Yesss, I love snapping turtle shells, I'm fortunate enough to have found a completely clean one in the woods during one of my hikes (which I now use as a palette for painting).... I really love the spikes at the base of it. Everything about snapping turtles just says 'dangerous motherfucker'.

have you ever gotten to see an alligator snapping turtle? we have them here, and they're actually a lot less aggressive than these guys... I've had to get out of the truck in the rain and flag traffic so we could get a 60+ lb one off the highway, and I still consider that one of the coolest nights of my life.

Ahh that does sound cool!! Glad that he was safe 8) Highways are no places for turtles.

I want to say we have those guys here but I'm not entirely sure... I do know that this past spring, I saw what I thought was a cute lil turtle trying to cross the road, so I stopped my car and pranced off to go carry the ickle baby 'cross the road. And it was only when I was within a few feet of the thing did I realize that it was not a 'cute lil turtle', it had a tail, spikes, was probably as big as one of my tires, also, it was fucking hissing and lunging at trucks going past it at 50 mph hour.
I just NOPED and ran back to my car and watched it until I made sure it was safely crossed.

Yeah, the only way to pick up an alligator snapping turtle is by the back of the shell where they can't reach you... and it's terrifying the whole time, because they hate you for iiiiiit

When it was flooding and gross here about 8 years ago, I was driving at night and saw what I thought was a muskrat or something crossing the road right in the middle of the city, actually like... on college campus. But when I got closer, it... was much bigger than I thought. It looked a little like an otter in the dark? So I got out with the intention of shooing it across... but oops. It was a huge fucking BEAVER. It turned when I got out and held up its little forepaws at me and opened its mouth and hissed.
I got back in my fucking car and watched it cross on its own. No fucking way was I gonna go tussle with that.

Oh my fuck jfjdfjf that's so scary and funny ...jeez as much as I like living amongst wild animals and such, the exact moments when I'm dealing with them I'm not really thinking 'Wow what a beautiful majestic creature. Truly, nature is perfect', it's more along the lines of, 'Today is the day I am getting rabies'
Not so much with run ins with like deer or bunnies, but absolutely with foxes, woodchucks, coons... possibly the black bear I saw hiking last week, but idk if it was actually a black bear, a really fat, dark coon, or some sort of shadow midget creature :(

Nature is perfect tho. Creepy mystery monsters included.

He wants you to touch his nose...