{"id":2321,"date":"2009-02-24T22:04:35","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T03:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2010-01-16T12:52:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-16T17:52:26","slug":"how-long-is-snappys-neck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=2321","title":{"rendered":"How Long Is Snappy’s Neck?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u00c2\u00a0“Snappy” — Juvenile Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentine)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Snappy<\/a>, the star reptile in the fresh water tank at Mass Audubon<\/a>‘s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>, offered a practical lesson last Friday on how not<\/strong> to handle a snapping turtle when attempting to relocate it from one place to another.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all a question of\u00c2\u00a0the turtle’s “business end.”\u00c2\u00a0 How long\u00c2\u00a0 is a snapping turtle’s neck and how far down its shell can that neck be stretched?\u00c2\u00a0 Clearly, it’s best to learn these lessons with a young juvenile as teacher.\u00c2\u00a0 While an adult snapping turtle would teach the same subject, its lesson might be a tad more permanent.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Snappy Shows Off His Long and Powerful Neck<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

They don’t call them snappers for nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only can a snapping turtle\u00c2\u00a0reach halfway down its carapace (top shell) to express its displeasure with human interaction, but a snapper can “quick draw” its neck faster than the Lone Ranger can\u00c2\u00a0unholster his\u00c2\u00a0six-shooter\u00c2\u00a0and fire a silver bullet.\u00c2\u00a0 Lucky for Don, Snappy has yet to\u00c2\u00a0master this aggressive technique\u00c2\u00a0in the safety of his life in paradise.\u00c2\u00a0 We suspect, though,\u00c2\u00a0that the next time he’s handled so casually, someone\u00c2\u00a0will pay the price of admission … so to speak.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\"imgp1485_0002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Snappy with Neck Fully Extended<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Where does Snappy put all that neck when not in\u00c2\u00a0the snapping mode?\u00c2\u00a0 A snapping turtle retracts\u00c2\u00a0its neck into a vertically bent S-curve within the protection of\u00c2\u00a0its shell when not capturing prey or warding off too curious humans and other similarly foolish critters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00c2\u00a0“Snappy” — Juvenile Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentine) Snappy, the star reptile in the fresh water tank at Mass Audubon‘s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, offered a practical lesson last Friday on how not to handle a snapping turtle when attempting to relocate it from one place to another.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all a question of\u00c2\u00a0the turtle’s “business end.”\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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\/2321"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2331,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}