Repeat after me ... My name is big_deck and I'm a turtlholic! lol! I like turtles too. In fact, I thought I'd post this one that I got at a rummage sale for a couple of bucks. I'm not sure what wood he is carved from but it sure is pretty! I took a picture of him on my scarf instead of on the dusty shelf where he was sitting. he-he I would really like to hang him on the wall. Both of your sites have some great turtle stuff and they are all reasonably priced. Thanks for sharing! As for live turtles ... if we can have snapping turtles, mud turtles, midland smooth shell turtles, Eastern spiny softshell turtles, wood turtles, Blanding's turtles, ornate box turtles, western painted turtles, midland painted turtles, common map turtles, Ouachita map turtles and false map turtles in our frozen tundra, I'm sure West Virginie can have a few too! I remember driving down a busy street near my house and when I suddenly slammed on the brakes, my BF asked me why I stopped. I said, "Don't you see that turtle in the middle of the road?" I'm not sure what kind it was but it was about a foot long. I have no idea where he was going because there isn't any water near where he was wandering. You don't want to mess with a snapping turtle. Then can snap your finger off without much effort. Just check out some of the videos on YouTube of snapping turtles.

Adorable baby. I remember the first time I saw one of these in adult size, retention pond (called a lake lol) in Naples. I thought it was a small Loch Ness monster. Snorkel neck sticking up out of the water. Much shyer than the other turtles which we fed bread. Would spook at the least thing. And one day saw one crossing our yard to get to the other retention pond. I think these are my favorite turtles, real personalities and right out of dinosaur-land.

The areas we night hunted Chad had been to previously. During the day we explored, searching for hogs and anything else that happened to be out in the 85-90 degree weather. Besides the turtles, we saw another recently hit copperhead, a DOR coachwhip, and a ribbon snake in the field. I missed a rough green in the field, which was very frustrating as I seem to otherwise have a DOR curse for the species (which continued through this trip as is evidenced on the list below). We discovered one beautiful drive which proved that the suspected resident was indeed in the area. Unfortunately, we were late in crossing his pathI tried to crop a small section of this once handsome specimen to cut out gore: We decided to walk the hillside habitat, but only a large box turtle was aboutÂin different conditions/time of year, this area certainly would have showed us more. By evening, we felt like we needed a break from driving and DORs before cruising that night, so when we came up on a couple of bridges we hopped out to walk around. Not expecting much more than the chance to stretch the legs and dodge poison ivy, I scrambled down under the bridge. After poking around a bit, my eyes crossed the path of this impressive beastÂright in the middle of the creek: We had just been musing about whether we were in cottonmouth range yetÂwe were Western Cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma , no flashÂalthough lacking detail, I liked the texture effect of this shot with flash As we were taking pictures, Chad noticed a small snake submerged not more than a couple feet from the cottonmouth. It turned out to be a blotched water snakeÂwe couldnÂt escape nerodia-less. Rejuvenated, we started the pigmy/pygmy (whichever you prefer) quest. After missing 2 or 3 more rough greens to trucks and semis in front of us, we came over a hill and had to quickly veer to straddle this fellowÂnote the car cresting the hill that would have been his doom. Black rat snake, Elaphe o. obsoleta And then we found him, shining white against the headlights, Mr. Streckeri  a beautiful animal, with an almost orange stripe: Western Pigmy/Pygmy Rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius streckeri Awhile later, Chad spied another great animal along the edge of the road. Speckled kingsnake, Lampropeltis getulus holbrooki On the way out, Chad spotted one more pigmy, this time a DOR--my eyes seemed to be done by now and seemed to be on 2-plus foot snake focus. We left the area early (11:00 PM), satisfied with our finds and wanting to get the drive home over with-- This is the list of species seen, as best as I can rememberÂIÂm sure I am forgetting a few: Western Pygmy Rattlesnake, Sistrurus miliarius streckeri 2 (1 DOR) Western Cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma 1 Timber Rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus 1 (DOR) Broad-banded copperhead, Agkistrodon contortrix laticinctus 6 (3 DOR) Northern Scarlet snake, Cemophora coccinea copei 1 (DOR) Speckled kingsnake, Lampropeltis getulus holbrooki 1 Prairie Kingsnake - Lampropeltis c. calligaster 1 (DOR) Black rat snake, Elaphe o. obsoleta 2 (1 DOR) Northern Rough Green snake, Opheodrys a. aestivus 6 (5 DOR) Blotched water snake, Nerodia erythrogaster transversa 1 Bull snake, Pituophis melanoleucus sayi 1 (DOR) Texas brown snake, Storeria dekayi texana 2 Eastern Coachwhip, Masticophis flagellum flagellum 1 (DOR) Prairie Racerunner, Cnemidophorus sexlineatus viridis 6 Northern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthinus 1 Three-toed Box Turtle - Terrapene carolina triunguis (many) Ornate Box Turtle - Terrapene ornata ornate (many) Red-eared Slider - Trachemys scripta elegans 5+ Midland Smooth Softshell - Apalone mutica mutica ? 1 Eastern Snapping Turtle - Chelydra serpentina serpentine (DORs) Southern Leopard Frog - Rana sphenocephala utricularia (hundreds) American Bullfrog - Rana catesbeiana (many) Eastern/Cope's Gray Treefrog - Hyla versicolor/chrysoscelis (many) Woodhouse's Toad - Bufo woodhousii woodhousii Northern Spring Peeper - Pseudacris crucifer crucifer (heard) Western Chorus Frog - Pseudacris triseriata (heard)

Brian, Cool. Enjoy your college years! SIU has a nice looking campus and is near a lot of great herping places. Plus how cool is it to be a Saluki?! I love that for a mascot. I always thought the lake there looked like a pretty good on campus herping site. And, of course, being that close to Snake Road is super cool. Good luck with your studies and the local herping.