I missed last week’s Photo Hunt because my blog was taken off-line. I ranted about it here.
Anyway, this week’s theme is FIVE. And as usual, my installment would be about terrapins, hohoho!
As you can see in the picture below, the river terrapin has four front claws, where as the painted terrapin (as well as most other turtles) has five.
The river terrapin’s claws are blunt (in the picture above) because we used to house them in concrete tanks with rough surfaces — in fact, I got scratched several times when I was brushing the insides of the tanks. We have since tiled the tanks as we know the sharp claws are essential for their survival once they are released.
So yea, the more recent batches of terrapins have needle-sharp claws that made it very difficult and torturous (for me) to weigh and measure them as they tend to scratch (and bleed) me. Mum advised me to wear a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves but you know, it isn’t as convenient as handling them with my bare hands :(



I would have never known! Those claws do look awfully sharp.
Wow. My kids would love this. Great choice and fascinating info.
Thanks. It is informative
That is a nice picture and I love the information. I think that is a very important part of the hunt. I must say these claws look scary to me. You should wear protection. Yikes.
wow, thanks for the info and really cool picture!!
Even with the sharp nails, they are still cute! I love learning about turtles from your posts!
the turtles are cute but you need to be cautious enough not to get hit by the nails and contract a disease. =p
Who knew that terrapin feet could be so sweet!
Always amazed at your terrapin photos. Keep on learing something new here. :-)
Happy Weekend!
As usual very interesting and informative. Happy weekend.