Biggest turtle (tortoise?) (terrapin?) I have had cross the road in front of me....EVER!

in #ocd-resteem6 years ago (edited)

I'm pushing 60 years old now, and this is THE biggest crittur of its genus (or whatever) that I ever had to stop for on the roadway. In fact, he had the traffic stopped in both directions while we all gawked at him. He wasn't in any particular hurry either. He probably took a full minute to cross the road, but I suspect he could have gone quite a bit faster had he wanted to do so.

Big turtle 001.JPG

I sure was glad he was out and crossing that road in broad daylight, and not at nighttime when you could have barely seen him. I mean, this guy--if you hit him going 60 miles per hour--could have really messed up the undercarriage of a little passenger car (like ours.)

Big turtle 002.JPG

Have any of you fellow Steemians ever had to stop for a bigger one than this guy? If so, I'd love to hear about.

Have a great evening, y'all. (Said that for my friend @janton, 'cuz I know he loves the way we Yankees talk...lol...)

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I have already seen turtles crossing the road two times, but none of that size.

Yea...there's been a run on them up here in northern Maine this year. This is the 5th I've seen crossing this spring and summer. I can't remember anything like it. Good for them!

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We stopped one day, but to admire what they have in the Busch Gardens Park in Tampa, they are another very peculiar species, I have never seen so many joints and large.

Without a doubt, crash at high speed with one of those that we saw, if it would cause a major breakdown in any family vehicle.


LOL...Bush Gardens critturs don't count! I know they can be much larger in zoos, and in the sea....lol...

hahaha! very good sir, you're sounding much better than a dang Yankee! yeah we have a huge guy like that, he goes from one pond to the other. I think they live to be decades old I know the real big tortoises are like 100 years old. our guy is about 1 foot or more across the shell.
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Looks a LOT like this one, doesn't he?

yeah that's what I thought, ours may be a little older or a different type because it had big points sticking up on it's tail which gave it a dinosaur look!

Pretty close though. Especially the neck and overall body shape.

yeah a couple of big guys, with the winter temperatures up there and the thick ice, how in the world do those guys survive, where do they go?

Don't they hibernate in the mud at the bottom of the pond?

yes sir! well, when we got here and saw all our turtles and then the ponds froze over I looked it up and yeah they hibernate. some types can go for 4 or 5 months without breathing and some can actually breathe under water. very strange creatures but very interesting when you see them through the ice swimming along!

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