Oko Topa

Monday, Mar 19 to Sunday, Mar 25, 2012: high 74, low 19

Two turtles–dead–right alongside the pond this Monday afternoon. One is a snapper, the other a painted turtle. This is the first time i’ve found a snapping turtle carapace. Its size and shape is unsettling. What happened to it and the painted one?

Scouting around i found a number of other carapaces–all Western Painted Turtles. Some, such as the one below, were a ways away from the pond.

A few were floating in the pond.

And others were immediately next to the water, like the three in the picture below.

I gathered these seven together to retrieve them later. The brightly colored one was pulled from the water. The others were found onshore and must have been sun bleached.

The snapper and painted turtle were pulled away from the water. Though all the painted turtle carapaces were empty, the snapper was not. It will be left here until decomposition is complete.