This morning we went for a walk in our neighbourhood. Just a little ways away from us we have a new development and they have a large man made lake thing, lol, and a forest, it's a perfect place for a nice long walk. So while we were there we came across this HUGE snapping turtle! After a little research we've estimated it to be at least 75 years old, do any turtle experts know for sure?

Here are some pictures of him/her! Enjoy!

Just lounging in the sun!



Head on shot!

Foot with some parasite things, apparently they live under the shell.



Dinosaur tail!

HOLY snap is right... that's a big turtle! I don't think I'd want to get bitten by him/her...

Is there other water around besides the man made lake? He's obviously been around for quite some time to get that large; and unless that man made lakes been there for a long long time this guy had to have been imported from somewhere else.

Thanks for sharing the pics, who'd it freak out more, you or the dogs?

That is awesome, its been YEARS since I saw one that size, I was about 10 years old and one was found under our neighbors apple tree along a culvert, a bunch of kids were being mean to it, so my Dad and brother in law got HUGE shovels, and put it in the trunk of my dads old car and took it to my Grandparents farm and released it near their stream to keep all those kids from hurting it! Great pix and that parasite thing is creepy looking

It used to be a huge, huge forest with swamps and marshes, there is also a large stream that goes through the area too. The stream is still there but doesn't connect to the 'lake' (but he could walk to it) and the forest still has a lot of marshes and water (especially since we've had so much rain this summer! ) There used to be a lot of deer and other animals but it's now a huge residential area so the deer have sadly had to move on... and all the bunnies came to our area to eat our flowers!

Wow, that is very cool!!!! He certainly is a big one, isn't he?

Wow that is some turtle. Did it go home yet?

Very cool pics!
How close did you get woman?!!! Hopefully that was zoom!!

those are leeches

those snapping turtles scare the beejeezus out of me
especially when they hiss
eep

That is ONE UGLY MUG !

What a big monster. Yeah he is huge. I just saw one on Letterman the other nite with Jack Hanna. It was funny to see how Letterman reacted around the guy. He was afraid of him!!! LOL thanks for sharin the pics.

lol, Lisa, we were about 3 feet away. I don't think the first picture had much of a zoom (so that gives you an idea of how close we were) ... the close ups were zoomed in for sure though!

The dogs really didn't care, I think they thought it was a rock!

Cool, I didn't realize they were leeches, but that makes sense I guess, do they help the turtle?

no...they just suck blood till theyre full then fall off

i used to find turtles at our pond in east texas (at our lake house) and pull the leeches off...if theyre big enough you can see their teeth

super creepy

I don't think the leeches help or hurt them.

You were wise to keep a distance though. I've seen them take chunks out of a boat paddle.

EEEK---I think you spotted the great grand daddy there----Wheew....
My dad use to catch those things somehow and then he would fix turtle stew....uuug....

That is good shots of that monster....