Why?

[garterman07]

i was in a flat bottomed boat and we were cruising through one of the little swampy areas fishing for catfish and one droped into the boat and bit the engine operator of it. he didn't get seriously hurt but we had to take him to the hospital.

other times i would be walking and see one in the grass it would coil up and then try to come at me, hising and showing me its mean face, i really don't like those little guys. i have nothing against them cept for the fact they're mean, poisonous and really don't like people. but i would never hurt one though even if it bit me, i'm not that kind of person. my first thought would be dam this sucks, then the next one what did i do wrong...


but other times you would be swiming in one of the local ponds and one gets in the water with you and if you see it first your lucky then you get a chance to get out and wait on shore till it goes away, but if the snakes don't cause problems the aligator turtles will in the ponds...

[Serpentine99]

you mean alligator snappers? I was watching animal planet or something and one of those guys found one, and man was it mean. It was like watching a horror movie and all your thinking is "get away from that thing!!!"

[garterman07]

yeah alligator snaping turtles those things are extremely mean they'll go out of their way to bite you, and they got a massive bite force, also they live hundreds of years. my uncle owns one that is over 200 years old. or so thats what the professors at the local college dated him

[Serpentine99]

Wow 200. We have regular snappers up here and they're pretty aggressive too. To relate to this thread I'll just say that the few species like snappers and other reptiles put a bad image in peoples head these days and the unknowing don't like to find if something is dangerous or not so the animal usually ends up dead. Not saying that it's the snappers fault, it's just that when people see an animal they're not familiar with they get the most dangerous of the species in their mind, which scares them into killing anything.

[abcat1993]

How big is this 200 year old snapper? I saw a giant one once that was probably 3 feet long, and my dad said it was probably 100.

[garterman07]

about that big a little bigger manybe. but they get pretty big, and they're nasty mean. the worst part is is that they stick to the bottoms of ponds and rivers and when yo step on one it could probably take your foot off easily, i mean look what a regular snapper can do but an alligator snapper is like that but on roids, and alot meaner. theres one in captivity thats over 300 plus years old. i will try and find the link for you, but it featured once on yahoo news.