Common snapping turtles have a reputation for being vicious and dangerous animals. Rumors and myths tell us that they can snap a broomstick in half with their powerful jaws and many people claim to know somebody who has lost fingers, or even a hand, to these "monsters". But the truth is that they are gentle and curious when they are in the water, and defensive, not aggressive, on land.

They might even swim up and sniff at a set of toes or fingers left hanging in the water, but they seldom bite people, and their has been no documented case of a finger or toe ever being bitten off by a common snapping turtle. Alligator snapping turtles are a much different species, being much larger, much more powerful and having very different behaviour. An alligator snapping turtle is very capable of inflicting serious injury and even amputation on human.

 As these scuba divers were returning to their cottage from a deeper dive, they encountered this large male in the shallow water near their dock. They saw that he had a large mass of leeches on his neck and they decided to try pulling them off.

Ordinarily, snapping turtles would never allow a human to touch or pull on them, but this one seemed very content to allow the diver to tug on the leeches with his bare hands. The leeches held on tight and the diver had to pull hard to dislodge them.

Full story here.

Man, that’s a fascinating way to start this article, “ snapping turtles aren’t dangerous, probably won’t even bite you and have never bitten off a finger.”

“oh THESE turtles? Yeah super dangerous, super common, and will bite your arm off.”

Why not just lead with that? Sneak in a little shoutout to non-dangerous snapping turtles that nobody cares about at the end of the article.

Regardless, this has got to buy us some good will right? As far as I’m concerned if you have the ability, and have been known to, amputate my body parts with your mouth- then you’ve got to remove your own leeches. Sorry. That’s store policy. You want the leeches off your neck or you want to bite the fingers off my hand? It’s up to you,  but you can’t have it both ways. 

Now, I know. Here we are talking turtle good will, and totally ignoring the fact that humans are probably so far in the negative in terms of good will it’s not even worth having this conversation. Well, you’re right. We’re in the red, big time, there’s no question about it. But that’s kind of to be expected, no? We’re humans! We’re dickheads! We destroy everything! That’s where the bar is. So, if you look at it that way we’re firmly on the way up with this leech removal. 

On that point, this is fucking disgusting. It’s not like we’re untangling the thing from barbed wire, which would be totally normal and not gross. We’re pulling leeches off of the back of its neck. Leeches are gross, and that extra skin at the back of your neck (all of us, not just you) is gross too. I don’t even know what leeches are. Are they meth addict worms? Bad snails? I’ve got no idea and I’ve got no desire to know. I don’t need to be fucking expert to know that this is a huge ask by Mr. Turtle, and this is why it pays to have friends.

May this be the start to a long and peaceful alliance between mankind and giant, dangerous turtles. I’m talking the full spread. We pull leeches off your loose skin and you let us pick you up and rub your bellies without risk of you eating our babies like a goddamn dingo.