Turtle fury!!

Check out my angry turtle!! :-D It's been a dream of mine for a while - I may have mentioned this - to take a picture of a yawning turtle. I caught Herman yawning this summer, on video ... that's one down, two to go. Today I kind of managed it with Raphael. Check it out - the second picture especially. What a set of jaws! He could almost fit his own head in there. :-D I really like the second shot, it really shows how their jaws aren't hinged like ours, but just attached with skin and muscle, like snakes' jaws. This lets them swallow large pieces of food, a necessity since they don't have teeth, only beaks. Also I really like it because he is so cute when he's mad. ;-)

OK, so he's not yawning, he's just gaping ... but it's almost the same thing. :-) Mouth open. :-) How can I tell he's not yawning? Because when he yawns, he fully extends his head. And he was gaping a lot just then too, he was really angry. Angryturt!! :-D

Click to enlarge the second one if you want to get a really good look. :-)

The gaping is a threatening behavior that they exhibit when they're angry and/or frightened. Why he was angry? Because he's such a little weirdo ... or at least that's partly why. Partly I guess he thought I was getting too fiddly with him. Touching his turtleneck too much. (But it's just so soft and cute ... !) And not letting him climb around exactly where he wanted and breathe in my eye. I don't know whether you've ever had a reptile breathe in your eye, but it's actually pretty uncomfortable. Their breath is cold, so it feels really weird and really not pleasant. But it wasn't all my fault, he is a weirdo too. :-) He got mad at the camera - the strap was dangling in front of him and this was apparently an extreme provocation on the camera's part. He gets those moods sometimes where he suddenly gets furious with an inanimate object that he has previously never shown any interest in whatsoever. He is a weirdo. :-)