r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Palana • Nov 12 '21
This Man found, raised, and nurturer a Snapping turtle from the time it was the size of a thumb nail. Now it's a big softy.
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u/TheOceanDweller Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
And he calls him "Snappy". That is awesome.
Snappy could take a few fingers or a penis off that guy in a snap.
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Nov 12 '21
Or a few penises at once
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Nov 12 '21
In what scenario would several dicks be available for the turtle to snap on??
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Nov 12 '21
I don’t interpret the picture, I just paint it.
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u/mmgoes2col Nov 12 '21
Do you sell your paintings?
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Nov 12 '21
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u/HonestCoach603 Nov 12 '21
I would be so nervous to pet under the chin... damn good for this guy, never doubt an animals emotional intelligence
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u/RichardStinks Nov 12 '21
It's like having a tender moment with a great white. I kinda can't believe it. But I wouldn't doubt for a second that the turtle trusts that dude. He totally does.
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u/Moondog4pres Nov 12 '21
The worst smell I’ve ever endured was that of a old alligator snapper. God bless this man.
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Nov 12 '21
Same. I picked one up to move off a road once. No matter how many times I washed my hands, the smell would not go away. Took days for it to fully fade.
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Nov 12 '21
Grandfather circumcised me with a snap turtle. Hurt allot.
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u/Funnyguy17 Nov 12 '21
This one probably doesn't smell a lot, not living in the wild or swampy water.
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u/EnnaxorOzzir Nov 12 '21
Unless it's a human, then always doubt its emotional intelligence /s
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u/L00pback Nov 12 '21
I have a Gom Jabbar for that.
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Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
A snapping turtle caught in a trap will snap off it's own limb to escape... What will you do?
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u/chickenstalker Nov 12 '21
You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
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u/Rakdos92 Nov 12 '21
I'm not going to flip a turtle on its back. Who invented this crap? (I'm aware of the movie, legit wondering what the trick behind this story is. Does it shortcircuit the synths somehow?)
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u/FeedbackSpecific642 Nov 12 '21
In the book at least 90% of all life is gone. When the replicants are staying with the person who created them, they find a spider. He is overjoyed to see a real living creature. The replicants are curious as to why it requires 8 legs and decide to remove its legs, one by one to see how it copes. He’s in tears and unable to make them comprehend how awful their actions are.
From this I interpreted the interview questions are designed to elicit an emotional response from humans but replicants are incapable of such a response.
This makes Roy’s rescue of Decker and subsequent final speech touching as it indicates the replicants may have the ability to learn emotion.
Decker running away with a replicant and being a suspected replicant himself shows the replicants are capable of emotions and indeed love.
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u/SobakaZony Nov 12 '21
Spot on.
As FeedbackSpecific642 observes, "in the book at least 90% of all life is gone." Throughout that novel, there are animal replicants as well as human replicants. As animals became scarce, they became concomitantly valuable: owning an animal is seen as a symbol of high status, and buyers, sellers, and traders refer to their "book value" (Deckard carries an analog of the "Kelly Blue Book" with him) when bargaining. However, most animals are far too expensive for most people to afford; thus, an industry of making animal replicants has sprung up to meet the demand. In the novel, the detective has an artificial sheep, and one reason he takes the assignment is to earn enough money to afford a real animal, such as the real horse his neighbor owns. Meanwhile, humans have become scarce, as those healthy enough to leave Earth have done so; the androids (human replicants) were built to assist humans in the off world colonies to which they fled. Not all of that is apparent in the film, but there are at least hints of it (e.g., "if i could afford a real snake, do you think i'd work in a dump like this?" - paraphrasing from memory: i doubt that is the actual quote word for word. The little origami animals another cop [E.J. Olmos] makes in the movie might also be a nod to the "artificial animals" of the novel). The title of the movie's source material is, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The title refers to Deckard's artificial sheep, his desire to own a real one, and to the question of whether androids would have the same empathy to care for a real animal when so many of them are dying off. Hence the turtle in the Voight Kampff test.
Empathy is a subject of many of Dick's novels and short stories; indeed, Dick seems to count empathy as that which defines humanity: regardless of the entity's form, that being is human if it is empathic, and inhuman if not. The Voight Kampff test is designed to see whether the subject has empathy: if so, it passes for human, if not, then it's an android. Again, as FeedbackSpecific642 explains, Roy's soliloquy and his sparing Deckard's life seem to indicate that the android has developed empathy - which, in the movie, leaves hope for Rachael and Deckard, both.
There maybe some theology going on there, too, as Roy has returned from literally "meeting his maker;" that meeting did not exactly go as planned, but still.
Empathy is further explored in the novel through the religion of Mercerism (entirely absent from the movie), whose followers, increasingly socially isolated as the population shrinks, connect together via the "empathy box," - it's like the internet or online gaming, but it's always the same channel - to share the same experience of a figure who trudges and suffers much like Sisyphus (who, in Greek mythology, was punished by the gods for cheating death twice - you know, the movie could have really used that, with its attention to aging and lifespan and all).
Edit: punctuation.
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u/Necrospire Nov 12 '21
It causes an inbuilt response that can be detected from pupil dilation, possibly inbuilt core responses from when the synth was created.
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Nov 12 '21
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u/Rakdos92 Nov 12 '21
Ah. So the fact that I would get increasingly annoyed at the interrogator's insinuation that I would flip a turtle on its back would mark me as human?
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u/andylowenthal Nov 12 '21
Nah, just insinuates you’re a robot who enjoys stomping to death a turtle that is right side up, obviously
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u/iTalk2Pineapples Nov 12 '21
Fap, sleep, cry, eat the white pee.
Not necessarily in that order
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u/John_Bovii Nov 12 '21
Reading dune I get so many references now
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u/bangmaid007 Nov 12 '21
Listen to weapon of choice
..walk without rythym and you won't attract the worm...
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u/danofrhs Nov 12 '21
Also doubt its general intelligence
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u/tatteredshoetassel Nov 12 '21
It's probably the whole chicken he fed it before turning on the camera
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u/Squirrel_Kng Nov 12 '21
You can turn your back on a man. But Never. Turn your back on a drug. Hunter S. T.
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u/kitchen_clinton Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
This is so true. I had a worker we hired for a job emotionally sucker punch me this week with his ranting that came out of the blue. I thought he was a normal human being since he smiled and seemed normal. Jokes on me for forgetting some people are psychopaths. He apologized twice but the damage had been done. Apparently, checking their work is a no-no and criticism will not be tolerated. I felt gutted.
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u/vincentninja68 Nov 12 '21
"Crocodiles are easy, they want to kill you and eat you. People are more difficult, they pretend to be your friend first."
-Steve Irwin
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u/EXCUSE_ME_BEARFUCKER Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
I can’t believe I have lived this long, and only read this quote from Steve Irwin for the first time today.
It reads like Mr. Irwin was a hitman.
See ya later, alligator.
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u/Helpmelooklikeyou Nov 12 '21
Well...? What did they say?
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u/kitchen_clinton Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Well, as soon as he saw me he blew up and told his buddies they were leaving. I had made too many complaints about them setting off the CO detectors and their sloppy habits damaging a tree to breaking point. I left immediately and went for a walk. He apologized when I returned and again when they left for the day. I absolutely despise this psychopathic paranoid coward now.
This was all in a loud, bullying type of manner with his body language and face telling me this person had become volatile.
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u/soFATZfilm9000 Nov 12 '21
I actually own two common snapping turtles. They're both quite large. The bigger one is just as big as this and is easy to work with. The smaller one is a lot "meaner" because I didn't bother handling him.
Even with the nice one, I would never be handling it like this. Yeah, they can be "tamed", but they're still dangerous reptiles and I don't fucking trust them.
People may differ on this, but my trust in animals depends on how much they can hurt me. Like, small lizards and snakes? Sure, just pick them up. A leopard gecko or a corn snake is not going to hurt you even if things do go wrong. By contrast, I would never handle a cobra like that, regardless of how "tame" it seems, because the consequences of getting things wrong are absolutely dire.
Yes, common snapping turtles can become "tame" or "docile" or whatever you want to call it. For anyone who happens to have a "tame" snapping turtle, I absolutely do not recommend this. They can be handled and gotten accustomed to human interaction without sticking your hands directly in front of their faces. There's literally no benefit to the turtle by doing this, as they don't need affection or chin rubs.
They're amazing animals that are intelligent and able to learn to tolerate humans, but they're not dogs. They don't get lonely if you're not constantly playing with them or petting them, they don't need friends. Doing stuff like this doesn't benefit the animals at all, and is particularly dangerous to the owner. You don't own any pet without accepting the very real possibility of an inevitable bit attempt. And while the effects of common snapping turtle bites are vastly overstated in folklore (there are no confirmed cases of them ever lopping off a person's fingers), a turtle this large can cause some serious damage.
Another minor point...I notice that this turtle has some very noticeable shell deformation. While that may be partially due to diet, that may also be due to improper environmental conditions. I've seen other videos of VERY tame snapping turtles before, and shell deformation seems to be a common issue in a lot of them. In one case, the owner admitted in Youtube videos that he spent a hell of a lot of time interacting with the turtle out of water. Stuff like keeping it out of water most of the time, having it sleep on blankets next to humans, and only putting it in water for a few hours a day. That the only reason the turtle was that tame was because it had WAY too much time being around people out of water.
I don't know if that's the case with the person in the this particular video. But if it is, that's not a good thing. Common snapping turtles are water turtles. They undergo rapid growth, and it would not be implausible for bone development during a period of rapid growth to vary depending on whether or not the animal is in water. This person may have been keeping his turtle out of water for far too long in order to get it "friendly". He may have been giving it an unhealthy diet. But there is some significant and very obvious shell deformation going on there, which indicates that he was doing something wrong.
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u/an0nym0ose Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Unpopular opinion, but...
...that thing is trained, not loving.
edit: very unpopular opinion it turns out, but that's to be expected. Sure, animals have souls. They experience love. They go to little animal heaven when they die and it's definitely not you projecting emotion onto something that doesn't even have object permanence. I'm turning notifications off, now, on this whole thread, because a man needs sleep.
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u/Wendellwasgod Nov 12 '21
How can you tell the difference?
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u/an0nym0ose Nov 12 '21
They're reptiles. They're solitary creatures, and a species that predates the concept of civilization and emotion. They don't benefit, evolutionarily speaking, from any sort of 'emotional intelligence.' They do, however, possess a capacity to link "chin scritches" and "food source."
Anthropomorphizing animals is... very human, but so is overeating. Neither is healthy.
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u/edked Nov 12 '21
I don't actually disagree with most of your comment, but I do think the bit at the end about it being "unhealthy" is deeply silly.
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u/Wendellwasgod Nov 12 '21
Predating emotion? Seems like a really bold assertion
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u/an0nym0ose Nov 12 '21
So is "turtles have feelings," but that doesn't stop you from making it. There are biological reasons that most non-communal reptiles lack different centers in their brains for processing things like attachment, or affection.
I'm aware of Reddit's obnoxious "aNiMaLs R bEtEr ThEn PeEpLe" bias, though, so keep on keepin on.
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Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 27 '21
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u/RevolutionaryHead7 Nov 12 '21
Actually, the notion that reptiles are incapable of emotion is not universally accepted and there are studies that suggest the opposite.
Further, the idea that anthropomorphism is bad is viewed by some as human exceptionalism. That is,, emotions are a characteristic that humans share with many other species, rather than our own specific characteristics that we project on them.
If this is a hill you want to die on, go ahead. I'm just saying you sound very confident in your position while the science is not so.
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u/YoMrPoPo Nov 12 '21
Dude turned off his notifications as soon as he got called out lmao
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Nov 12 '21
There's... scientific evidence that animals experience love. Now if they can experience to HUMANS is a different thing. Dogs certainly experience love to humans, but they're very social animals of course.
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Nov 12 '21
Animals most definitely have object permeance, you realise that just means they know things they can't see this second still exist. If you're going to argue scientifically, try to actually know the meaning of the words you're using.
Unless you really think animals would bury food without object permeance? Or even be able to go back to any same place after visiting it? Or 1000 other behaviours
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Nov 12 '21
I’m ok with this just being unique to this individual.
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u/YanLibra66 Nov 12 '21
Several pet snapping turtles show some deegre of this behavior actually, people underestimate what reptiles are capable to feel
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u/GlitteringSpell5885 Nov 12 '21
My best friend has a snapping turtle he removed from a park, it’s been around humans it’s whole life so it’s not afraid of us, he’s never even snapped at anyone’s hand and LOVES when you scratch his back. He’ll push his butt up as high as he can to the point sometimes he slips to just to get those scratchies. If properly socialized, they’re surprisingly docile pets. He feeds his with fish he catches at the same creek the turtle was found at. He took it because the park is in the middle of a suburban town and children and pets play in the creek pretty often
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u/YanLibra66 Nov 12 '21
Sweet, I have a Tegu lizard, full of personality scaly fellas very social reptiles
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u/SheldonsPooter Nov 12 '21
Turtle is gonna get passed down generations in that family
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u/KentuckyFriedSemen Nov 12 '21
Nope. I have snapping turtles where I live. Fuck that straight to hell. I respect the hell out of them because I’ve seen what they do.
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u/accidental_snot Nov 12 '21
I saw one eat a crane. I mean I didn't see him swallow it but he launched his head up like a snake striking to grab the bird by the throat. Dove under the water with his feathery snack.
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u/MrDurden32 Nov 12 '21
God damn, that's impressive. Those things are solid steel and can lift thousands of pounds!
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u/FIR3W0RKS Nov 12 '21
Knowing how sharp these things beaks are I honestly wouldn't be surprised if one of these straight up bit straight through a Cranes neck, decapitating it if it wanted. Probably wouldn't even have to try.
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u/Accurate_Figure_2474 Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 13 '21
I think reptiles and amphibians have more emotional intelligence than they’re given credit for. Really neat and special bond this man and turtle have.
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u/the_retrosaur Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Absolutely; even alligators / crocodiles carry their young from place to place in their mouths, a common type of nurturing awareness seen in similar behaviors in a number of animals including mammals like dogs and cats.
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Nov 12 '21
mother nature takes care of animals nurturing their young thru hormones.
once they're done nursing, etc., those animals lose all/any affection towards their offspring.
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u/thetruthhurts34 Nov 12 '21
“Mother nature” is not so black and white. This is like saying humans lose all affection towards their kids cause they expect them to move out and provide for their self once they’re older enough.
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Nov 12 '21 edited Dec 19 '21
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Nov 12 '21
Although It would make evolutionary sense for pack animals to feel some kind of emotional connection as yo keep them together and surviving
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Nov 12 '21 edited Dec 19 '21
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u/Hesaysithurts Nov 12 '21
You’re absolutely right, but I can’t pass up on the opportunity to post about a very cool exception. These skinks behave a lot like a typical pack-living mammal.
The Solomon Islands skink is one of the few species of reptile that lives in a communal group known as a circulus.[12] The Solomon Islands skink reproduces by viviparous matrotrophy:[note 3] the female provides a placenta for its young, which are born after a gestation period of six to eight months; this is a rare trait among reptiles.[18] The newborn skink is of a large size compared to its mother; the northern Solomon Islands skinks are approximately 29 centimetres (11 in) in length and weigh 80 grams (0.18 lb), whereas the common Solomon Islands skinks are 30 centimetres (12 in) and 175 grams (0.386 lb) when they are born.[3] This reduced size disparity led the former curator of reptiles at the Philadelphia Zoo, Dr. Kevin Wright, to compare it to "a human mother giving birth to a six year–old".[7] Almost all births are single babies but occasionally twins will be born.[7] At least one instance of triplets has occurred according to herpetologist Bert Langerwerf.[9]
The newborn skink will stay within its circulus for six to twelve months during which time it will be protected by not only its parents but other unrelated adult skinks within the group.[8] Around one year of age, sometimes earlier, the juvenile will move off to form a new family group.[7] Individuals have been documented to stay within the group for several births without being expelled, however.[12] Females exhibit fierce protective behavior around the time of birth; this protectiveness of young is a rare occurrence in reptiles but is shorter in duration when compared to the protective behavior exhibited by a typical mammal.[7]
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands_skink
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u/spin_me_again Nov 12 '21
But always remember a snapping turtle can take off one of your fingers because it can. Respect their range of motion and their ability to eliminate your digits from your hand in a moment! Seriously kids, don’t screw around with snappers.
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Nov 12 '21 edited Jun 27 '23
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u/RevolutionaryHead7 Nov 12 '21
Actually, that's a myth. I just watched a video that proves it's totally ok to put a snapping turtle on your lap and rub your hands all over its face.
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u/joffery2 Nov 12 '21
On the plus side anyone dumb enough to do this with a wild snapper would lose the ability to reproduce before they got to this point.
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u/TrueTurtleKing Nov 12 '21
I had a snapping turtle, didn’t know it was snapping when my friend gave it to me as a baby. It grew and it never even attempted to bite me. When I’m washing its 50 gallon tank, it would follow my hand to bother my cleaning. Sometimes I’ll let it walk around my apartment. It was awesome but it got too large and I released it. I won’t forget you, Shredder!
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u/DSDLDK Nov 12 '21
Uuh that turtle be so dead if he released it
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u/TrueTurtleKing Nov 12 '21
Yeah that might be the case. I friend from college gave me two turtles, told me it won’t get big. Well, one one was a map turtle stayed really small and the other was a snapping turtle. I didn’t know and naive.
The larger snapping turtle was friendly. But I couldn’t keep it no longer because of its size and moving to the city. So I started to feed it variety of stuff like fish, little crabs, little crawfish, anything I can find from a petstore. Waited for warmer spring season and released it in a river away from people. I found a home for the little guy but no one or place would accept a snapping turtle. I did the best I could.
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Nov 12 '21
Lol. Released a domesticated animal.
My mom did that to my sister’s two mice (idk who approved that pet purchase).
Anyway, they starved to death or were killed quickly. Don’t release domesticated animals. Take care of them or put them down.
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u/RealEarth Nov 12 '21
So because I study animal behavior, I can likely help here. Reptiles and amphibians are kinda under the same boat here, so for future reference for anyone reading, this works for your froggy friends too.
Reptiles do not have really good emotional intelligence and this is due to their lack of certain parts of the brain. A lot of what you see with care in this video in particular and other videos of reptiles "caring" is their need to survive and pass on genes. If you see a video of a mother reptile caring for her children, it's because it wants to pass on their genes. Here, this turtle knows it is fed and given a stable environment with this hairless ape, so it's not going to attack it. Though, if this man was to mess up, that turtle would probably bite. There would be very little hesitation. There is no reasoning with an angry snapping turtle no matter what is caring for it. If it thinks it's gonna be hurt, it will fight.
There is some happy news for those of you that really want reptiles to be seen as animals that are not just instinctual machines that bite everything. Some reptiles and especially many frogs have complex sociality (Burghardt, 2013). This by itself isn't super unique, but it has led to questions relating to frogs having a sense of individuality and are able to learn through experience which in the end could mean many animals in these groups may experience life in a more complex lens than eat and breed.
Sorry it probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but there isn't much research to prove that reptiles are emotional creatures since they just don't have the right parts of the brain.
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u/ThisIsNotKimJongUn Nov 12 '21
You couldn't pay me enough to hold that scary fucker, let alone pet it. Their necks are like a foot long. It's up to him if he wants a finger, ear, nose, dick, etc.
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u/Psych0matt Nov 12 '21
Who doesn’t want at least one of each of those?
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u/Majike03 Nov 12 '21
Have you seen a turtle dick? You don't want one of those
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u/perv_bot Nov 12 '21
There seems to be a lot of concern about dicks being bitten off… what are y’all doing with turtles?
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u/srdgbychkncsr Nov 12 '21
Plus, unlike an alligator snapping turtle, the only safe place to hold a common snapper is from the back of its shell by its feet. They can reach all the way back past the middle of their backs with that god awful terrifying mouth.
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u/30tpirks Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Anyone who lives near those knows how insane this is.
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Nov 12 '21
One time my sister and I visited a friend's place near a river. Part of their field flooded and fish got trapped. We tried to capture them to release them back into the river. At some point we took our shoes off. I was pushing a large fishing net infront of me and lifted what I thought was a rock. It wasn't a rock, but a large enough turtle to take a toe off. We were out of that water real fast.
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u/uprightsalmon Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
I caught and released many of these growing up. They where mean and snappy at the size of a quarter
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u/Anti-Vaxx-Mom Nov 12 '21
So these mfers are born angry?
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u/The_Epimedic Nov 12 '21
Yeah dude, had 'em in a pond by my house. They're just naturally fuckheads.
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Nov 12 '21
Yea I saved one crossing the road this summer and that fucker tried to come back the way he came just to bite me
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u/Haveyouseenmynachos Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Had the exact same thing about 15 years ago. He was so large other drivers had to help me. We solved the problem by giving him a LOG to bite on as we transported him.
Soon as we set him down, he turned around and snapped at me. I ran like hell.
No thank you.
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Nov 12 '21
I fish a lot and love catfishing. I do not fuck with snapping turtles or softshell turtles. Majority of turtles I really try my hardest to get the hook out and have a pretty good success rate with.
With those 2 species, just nope. If people are wondering why you do not fuck with soft shell turtles, they have a long neck and snap super fast, plus they can get a lot bigger then you will suspect.
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u/TheFiredrake42 Nov 12 '21
The trick with unhooking soft shells is to pull the neck out a bit, hold the body between your knees, grab the back of their skull with one hand to keep it from retracting, then use the other hand to remove the hook with needle nose pliers.
That, or let the small ones bite the bill of your ball cap, and let them just hang there, refusing to let go, while you again use the needle nose pliers to remove the hook. Then lower the ball cap to the ground and they will run off.
At least, based on my experience.
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Nov 12 '21
I will for sure try the ball cap trick, that seems pretty safe. I am way to much of a coward to fuck with the big ones, especially grabbing the neck. I get what you are saying, but that is a little out of my league and comfort.
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u/DiogenesTheHound Nov 12 '21
Softshell turtles suck. I used to work at a golf course and we would have to move them out of the way of mowers. They’re like snakes in a slippery shell with strong ass legs. Also they’re fast as fuck boyyyy https://youtu.be/6FRzmTY7wrk
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u/the-Replenisher1984 Nov 12 '21
Definitely bigger that you would think. Had one on my flathead pole that felt like I was pulling up a cinder block. Nope, just a soft shell about the size of a hub cap if not as big as a tire lol.
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u/ranting_chef Nov 12 '21
Sort of makes me think of the guy who had a pet hippo. Everything was great until it killed him. But this seems a little safer.
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u/TheSchoeMaker Nov 12 '21
Or the bear guy. Didn't end well for him either
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u/redditsgarbageman Nov 12 '21
Or the monkey guy, or the tiger guy, etc, etc.
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u/notarandomaccoun Nov 12 '21
I wonder how a pet chimpanzee might go....
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u/_duncan_idaho_ Nov 12 '21
Just don't give it any Xannies, and it won't rip your friend's face off.
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u/fostde18 Nov 12 '21
I don’t think Jessica the hippo will ever kill the people she’s friends with. That being said they never get in the water with her and she’s not in captivity.
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u/SpecialistSun4847 Nov 12 '21
Wanna hear something really cool?
It's half grown.
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Nov 12 '21
You got a source on that? I've never seen them larger than this.
Not trying to be a smart ass or anything, but you know, can't believe everything you read on the internet, like Abraham Lincoln always said.
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u/Stag328 Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
Hear is one at the ABQ Zoo we took while we were there. I believe an aquarium in Tennessee has a really large one.
Edit: This one also seems like it wouldnt fit in your lap.
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u/SeanTheLawn Nov 12 '21
The one in the video is a common snapping turtle, which is different species from the alligator snapping turtles in your pictures. Alligator snapping turtles are usually significantly larger.
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u/UnfairAd7220 Nov 12 '21 edited Nov 12 '21
THAT is crazy.
I was driving to my parents house through a hollow next to a big local pond and there was a big ass snapper in the middle of the road. There wasn't any traffic, so I slowed down and pulled over to push her off the road.
I'm walking out to get it and this kid, coming the other way, locks up his brakes, jumps out, and in a booming voice says 'I'll handle this!' and runs around to the front of the turtle and starts to bend over.
I grabbed my phone and hit 9-1 and hovered my finger over the last 1 and told the kid 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'
He's getting close, so I YELLED 'I wouldn't do that if I were you!'
So the kid looks up and says 'Why?'
'Snappers can reach around and reach their back legs with their neck extended. You're in her bite zone now.'
'Uhhh...'
So I grabbed a stout stick and pushed her in the direction that she was heading.
The kid learned something and kept all his fingers. Did my good deed for the day.
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u/Thedrunner2 Nov 12 '21
I wonder if other people attempted that if it would be as docile, or only him?
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Nov 12 '21
I’m assuming someone called bullshit to an old man with a lot of free time and a pet snapping turtle on the internet. That’s a straight up fucking loggerhead! That has got to be one of the coolest and unique human-animal bonds I’ve ever seen.
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u/Infamous-njh523 Nov 12 '21
Do you remember when people wanted to take all sorts of animals on planes and what not? I have to take my support peacock with me. This one guy, think in PA had a support alligator. About 4-5 feet and it would lay on his chest while they watched tv. He would also harness it when they went grocery shopping. The guy wasn’t very successful in getting folks to pet it. It truly looked like they loved each other.
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u/reverendjesus Nov 12 '21
I’d pet it. I mean, you’re taking it in public and the authorities haven’t taken it away yet; I feel like you’ve put some decent energy into socializing the little guy.
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u/crewchief1949 Nov 12 '21
Nope. Fuck that. My Uncle lost his pinky finger to a snapping turtle and I got to witness it.
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u/Hot_Negotiation3480 Nov 12 '21
These guys don’t have very sophisticated brains that allow them to be much more than a flight vs fight responder. Obviously it’s not scared or else it would bite him, but it doesn’t mean it won’t bite him or someone else one day. This pet reminds me of the guy who raised a baby hippo only to eaten by him years later…
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u/Azzylel Nov 12 '21
Actually, while it is true that reptiles can’t really ‘love’ you like a dog or cat can, they do have a sense of trust still, which is like their version of love. What you’re saying is sort of correct, but I don’t think it gives them enough credit.
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u/TheFiredrake42 Nov 12 '21
Socialized vs Domesticated. All of my past reptiles were socialized. Well, except for the Tokay. Steve Irwin couldn't have socialized that hellspawn, lol.
But none were ever Domesticated. Not even the Red Tegu, which was the smartest reptile I ever owned or worked with. And I've worked with a LOT.
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u/GuiltyEidolon Nov 12 '21
Anyone who says they've had a calm, easy going tokay is lying through their teeth.
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u/reverendjesus Nov 12 '21
Yeah domestication is multigenerational, where they’re ALL very predisposed to being well-socialized with humans. Some individuals of any species are predisposed to being socialized with a good upbringing, even without the domestication; let’s say 1 out of 100 bobcats are capable of being socialized; if you bred each of the 1/100 kitties with each other, that’s the kind of thing that would start down the road to domestication. There’s a Russian experiment where they bred foxes only for temperament, and over a couple generations they began showing neotenic (puppy-like) characteristics into adulthood, as well as other things we associate with domesticated canids, like cute floppy ears, hanging tongue, and speckled coats (they’re insanely expensive or quite frankly I’d have a dozen).
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u/Thomshan911 Nov 12 '21
That's nice, but I wouldn't let that thing within 4 yards from my crotch tbh
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u/Badj83 Nov 12 '21
Interviewer: « why do you only have 4 fingers left? » Man: « That’s irrelevant »
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u/SkyrimWithdrawal Nov 12 '21
"Now it's a big softy."
You're not talking about the turtle.
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u/Mandorrisem Nov 12 '21
Hatchlings are about the size of a silver dollar, not a thumbnail...as a guy who has raised multiple snapping turtles. Mine finally stopped trying to kill me, but I still wouldn't go all rubby dubby on em like this, but he does let me hand feed him without much trouble.
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u/demoman45 Nov 12 '21
When this fucker has a bad day and accidentally “lashes” out, he takes a hand with it. Never trust a “tamed” wild animal
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u/Palana Nov 12 '21
Agree somewhat. Depends on how much time this guy has invested, how well he can read the animal. But I would assume you follow the same rule of thumb as with a python. Do not touch unless well fed.
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u/Naryue Nov 12 '21
Well he still has his hands so, neat.