The cold days are limiting reptile finds...

The other day I drove out to Banner. They still have a lot of the roads closed because the water is still very close to the road. But I drove around the signs anyway. I came upon a very cool find. A Smooth Softshell Turtle. It was awesome. Here are some pics I took of him...



This was an upclose shot of him. He is a rather handsome fellow. I love the snout-nose on these guys. They really are very cool creatures.



His shell was very rubbery to the touch. And the turtle actually has some limited control on movement of the plastron (especially the rear section). The coloration was a deep olive green helping him to blend into any watery environment perfectly.

Their design is perfect for fast movement through the water. They are like bullets in the water.

They can also make short, very fast spurts on land. His neck is extraordinarily long. And after a while he began to show quite a bit of displeasure from being handled. Take a look at this shot I took as he was trying to bite my face off...