Obstructions

G.T. wrote:

wrote in message
...

Finally, here's about ten pounds of expectant mother, a bit bigger
than a bike helmet. Inflamed by a thunderstorm, she foolishly dug a
nest this afternoon at the edge of a sandy but poorly drained two-rut
road, fifteen feet from her marsh:
http://i12.tinypic.com/6gxpi1g.jpg


Damn, that is one ugly turtle, but I guess I prefer tortoises:

Now, now I'm sure he's very attractive to a turtle of the appropriate sex.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3645128

It looks drier, but not noticably more attractive to my eye. Your
mileage obviously varies.

--
Dane Buson -
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.

Angels we have heard on High
Tell us to go out and Buy.
-- Tom Lehrer

"Dane Buson" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:

wrote in message
...

Finally, here's about ten pounds of expectant mother, a bit bigger
than a bike helmet. Inflamed by a thunderstorm, she foolishly dug a
nest this afternoon at the edge of a sandy but poorly drained two-rut
road, fifteen feet from her marsh:
http://i12.tinypic.com/6gxpi1g.jpg


Damn, that is one ugly turtle, but I guess I prefer tortoises:

Now, now I'm sure he's very attractive to a turtle of the appropriate sex.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3645128

It looks drier, but not noticably more attractive to my eye. Your
mileage obviously varies.


I think for me it's mostly that the desert tortoises have thin elegant
necks, albeit very wrinkly necks. Whatever turtle that is in Mr Fogel's
photos has a big triangular blob of a neck/head.

Greg
--
Ticket******* tax tracker:
http://ticketmastersucks.org/tracker.html
"Run over you friends in stolen Volkswagens
And tell them I sent you, and tell them I sent ... you" - Mclusky

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:17:28 -0700, "G.T."
wrote:


"Dane Buson" wrote in message
...
G.T. wrote:

wrote in message
...

Finally, here's about ten pounds of expectant mother, a bit bigger
than a bike helmet. Inflamed by a thunderstorm, she foolishly dug a
nest this afternoon at the edge of a sandy but poorly drained two-rut
road, fifteen feet from her marsh:
http://i12.tinypic.com/6gxpi1g.jpg


Damn, that is one ugly turtle, but I guess I prefer tortoises:

Now, now I'm sure he's very attractive to a turtle of the appropriate sex.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3645128

It looks drier, but not noticably more attractive to my eye. Your
mileage obviously varies.


I think for me it's mostly that the desert tortoises have thin elegant
necks, albeit very wrinkly necks. Whatever turtle that is in Mr Fogel's
photos has a big triangular blob of a neck/head.

Greg

Dear Greg,

On land, common snapping turtles extend their necks only slightly,
unless striking, which is too fast to see.

Underwater, the common snapper often extends its neck fully as it
wanders about on the bottoms of ponds. Here are some pictures of a
small common snapper with its neck extended in the natural fasion,
underwater:

http://www.chelydra.org/guest_pg11.html

If anything, snappers have longer necks relative to shell size than
other turtles.

Try to stay calm when you look at the neck exposed by the Playboy-pose
of the modest snapper in the second photograph on this page:

http://www.chelydra.org/snapping_tur...ification.html

Those who prefer exotic models may enjoy this creature, which occupies
much the same niche in South America that the common snapper occupies
in North America:

http://whozoo.org/Anlife99/diegoben/finalmataindex.htm

Caution: explicit long neck pictures!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:13:09 -0600, wrote:

[snip]

Just before my ride, today's 10% chance of thunderstorms rose to 60%
and then 100%. The rain led a large female snapping turtle to lay her
eggs on the far side of a chain link fence by the path.

Like an idiot, I was so busy trying to shield the camera from the rain
blowing into my face that I forgot that the sight is _above_ the
damned lens, so all the pictures hark back to the half-faced Wilson
character in "Tool Time":

http://i14.tinypic.com/4yzd45w.jpg

To my surprise, you can see her face and eye if you view the picture
full size. She was about the size of two 18-pounders that I kept as
pets.

When the rain stopped, I looked hopefully for spiny softshell turtles
out laying eggs, but they continue to elude me this year. Instead, I
stumbled upon a beast closer to three feet than two.

Better focus on its head:

http://i18.tinypic.com/6baor3k.jpg

Whole beast:

http://i10.tinypic.com/66uy8ec.jpg

It's a corn snake at the northwest edge of its range, rarer, but
easily confused with a bullsnake until you see the face stripe.

Alas, this was a mature bullsnake:

http://i17.tinypic.com/61n6niq.jpg

Wheelbase is about 41 inches, so the poor thing was about four feet
long and might have grown twice as long.

CF

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:09:11 -0600, wrote:

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:13:09 -0600, wrote:

I stumbled upon a beast closer to three feet than two.

Better focus on its head:

http://i18.tinypic.com/6baor3k.jpg

Whole beast:

http://i10.tinypic.com/66uy8ec.jpg

It's a corn snake at the northwest edge of its range, rarer, but
easily confused with a bullsnake until you see the face stripe.

Alas, this was a mature bullsnake:

http://i17.tinypic.com/61n6niq.jpg

Wheelbase is about 41 inches, so the poor thing was about four feet
long and might have grown twice as long.

CF

Embarrassingly, I grew suspicious, looked back, and found an example
of someone (me) mis-identifying a corn snake as a bullsnake.

This was actually a small corn snake, not a bullsnake:

http://i6.tinypic.com/5y13okk.jpg

The coloring, scale pattern, and facial stripe were painfully obvious
in my memory. Sure enough, when I found the picture, it was about as
bad as mistaking a tubular for a clincher.

In contrast, this really was a small bullsnake:

http://i11.tinypic.com/52fvkno.jpg

Bullsnakes are yellower than corn snakes, their scale patterns are
less regular, and they lack the facial stripe. Now I know that staring
through the view-finder can lead to really silly mistakes.

Here's a bullsnake face with no corn-snake stripe on either side, much
less two of them coming to a vee on the forehead:

http://i6.tinypic.com/4ztygba.jpg

Whew! Now I can sleep tonight.

CF

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:09:11 -0600, wrote:
......
Embarrassingly, I grew suspicious, looked back, and found an example
of someone (me) mis-identifying a corn snake as a bullsnake.

This was actually a small corn snake, not a bullsnake:

http://i6.tinypic.com/5y13okk.jpg

The coloring, scale pattern, and facial stripe were painfully obvious
in my memory. Sure enough, when I found the picture, it was about as
bad as mistaking a tubular for a clincher.

In contrast, this really was a small bullsnake:

http://i11.tinypic.com/52fvkno.jpg

......

The difference is obvious. One has its head on the right, the other's head
is on the left. 8)

ChuckD

On Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:34:34 GMT, "Chuck Davis"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:09:11 -0600, wrote:
......
Embarrassingly, I grew suspicious, looked back, and found an example
of someone (me) mis-identifying a corn snake as a bullsnake.

This was actually a small corn snake, not a bullsnake:

http://i6.tinypic.com/5y13okk.jpg

The coloring, scale pattern, and facial stripe were painfully obvious
in my memory. Sure enough, when I found the picture, it was about as
bad as mistaking a tubular for a clincher.

In contrast, this really was a small bullsnake:

http://i11.tinypic.com/52fvkno.jpg

......

The difference is obvious. One has its head on the right, the other's head
is on the left. 8)

ChuckD

Dear Chuck,

Sometimes even that handy rule doesn't help. Thelma and Louise were
_both_ corn snakes:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...oheadsnake.jpg

Some details:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...headsnake.html

Naturally, there was a Mary-Kate and Ashley:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science...aded.snake.ap/

"We" is frankly an uninspired name:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14391706/

An unnamed Spanish entry:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1910471.stm

And more . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycephaly

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:13:09 -0600, wrote:

[snip]

Small bullfrogs, politely staying off the course and reflecting the
silly camera flash on a cloudy evening:

http://i19.tinypic.com/4zan9s8.jpg

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:13:09 -0600, wrote:

[snip]

An email asked if there are any botanical obstructions on my daily
ride, so here's a picture of the strangest plant that I notice, a
blooming century plant about ten feet high just around the corner from
my driveway:

http://i12.tinypic.com/61t603o.jpg

Before blooming, it looks like a gigantic asparagus growing out of a
bayonet plant. This one is about two feet taller than the street sign.

A more common and shorter obstruction:

http://i14.tinypic.com/52pukk9.jpg

And at last a lesser earless Colorado relative of the Komodo dragon
stayed still long enough for a pictu

http://i11.tinypic.com/524co79.jpg

Usually I see Holbrookia maculata only as it skitters off the pavement
at high speed. As a boy, I admired but could never match friends who
caught specimens using fishing poles with tiny nooses.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:13:09 -0600, wrote:

[snip]

In honor of Independence Day, this frankly plump female was playing
don't-tread-on-me with her head lifted as I went by:

http://i18.tinypic.com/5x6k56w.jpg

Click on the lower right for full-size in explorer.

Note the black stump of her abbreviated tail, probably from previous
defiance of bicycles (or perhaps a lucky escape from some hungrier
predator).

The white fluff on the glove and ground is just cottonwood seedlings,
sometimes mistaken by indignant visitors for evidence that old cotton
mattresses must be littering the nature trail and bursting nearby.
After a mile or so, the angry ecologists usually realize that there's
a more natural explanation.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel