{"id":10460,"date":"2012-04-22T09:32:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T14:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10460"},"modified":"2012-04-22T09:37:28","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T14:37:28","slug":"the-land-time-forgot-modern-pterodactyls-and-dinosaurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10460","title":{"rendered":"The Land Time Forgot: Modern Pterodactyls and Dinosaurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)\u00c2\u00a0 — Click to Enlarge<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to pre-history.\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to\u00c2\u00a0a time before time when giant reptiles ruled the earth and fury little mammals\u00c2\u00a0shivered in the reeds.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever snapping turtles rise from winter brumation, time quakes and it seems to Turtle Journal as though dinosaurs rule once again.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I defy you to examine the tail of this splendid specimen without envisioning an ancient dinosaur.<\/p>\n

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The Land Time Forgot (in Marion, MA)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Today Turtle Journal ventured to the Land Time Forgot in Marion, Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 Even in full sunlight, this area conveys a sense of\u00c2\u00a0 claustrophobic forboding\u00c2\u00a0as dense canopy melds with thick underbrush.\u00c2\u00a0 The opaque murkiness of the water adds to the allusion of a place frozen in a forgotten time.<\/p>\n

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Modern Day Pterodactyl:\u00c2\u00a0 Great Blue Heron<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Reinforcing\u00c2\u00a0the mood of a\u00c2\u00a0lost time, modern day pterodactyls (great blue herons)\u00c2\u00a0glide through the air\u00c2\u00a0while serenading the\u00c2\u00a0wetlands with raucous\u00c2\u00a0“frahnks” that echo through tree tops\u00c2\u00a0and ripple\u00c2\u00a0across the pond like the imagined calls of extinct dinosaurs.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The rich odor of fetid swamp, accented with blizzards of gnats, nails the scene as straight out of a classic 1950s horror script.<\/p>\n

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Giant Snapping Turtle Claws through the Murk<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As we\u00c2\u00a0slipped\u00c2\u00a0expectantly down the path, the moment got trapped in paralyzing stillness, the same sense\u00c2\u00a0that besets\u00c2\u00a0films whenever something really dreadful is about to occur.\u00c2\u00a0 And on cue, out of the murky blackness, a behomoth clawed the water to reach the brambled bank\u00c2\u00a0underneath our feet.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Snapping Turtle in Marion, MA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We stopped … walking and breathing … as this large snapping turtle wedged himself under the bank, waited a few minutes and then pushed off\u00c2\u00a0toward the\u00c2\u00a0depths, disappearing into\u00c2\u00a0total blackness\u00c2\u00a0within just a few feet of\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0bank.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal loves snapping turtles; they are a direct linkage to a world we only know through fossils and imagination.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal respects snapping turtles; they are truly awesome, especially when they appear and disappear as if by\u00c2\u00a0cinema magic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)\u00c2\u00a0 — Click to Enlarge Welcome to pre-history.\u00c2\u00a0 Welcome to\u00c2\u00a0a time before time when giant reptiles ruled the earth and fury little mammals\u00c2\u00a0shivered in the reeds.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever snapping turtles rise from winter brumation, time quakes and it seems to Turtle Journal as though dinosaurs rule once again.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I defy you to examine the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10460"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10489,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10460\/revisions\/10489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}