This post is titled Jaws Drop When Giant Turtle Surfaces by author SoulJah.
FULLERTON, Calif. -- The legend of a vicious snapping turtle named "Old Bob" turned out to be true when workers hired to scoop fish from Laguna Lake pulled out the 50-year-old creature.

For 40 years, residents around the man-made lake had heard rumors about the 100-pound reptile known as an alligator snapping turtle.

"No wonder folks get excited," Sharon Paquette, vice president of the Orange County chapter of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club, said Thursday after the snapper surfaced. "It's an awesome sight to see what looks like a prehistoric creature."

Officials did not know how the giant turtle, normally found in the South and Midwest, got to the lake.

"I'd heard for years there was supposed to be big turtle somebody let loose," said Fullerton resident Carlos Mingo.

Alligator snapping turtles are the largest of all freshwater turtles in North America, growing up to 250 pounds and living longer than 100 years. It has a wormlike tongue used to attract its prey, a huge head with a hooked beak and ridge-like shell.

The creature is illegal in California, Paquette said, because they breed and multiply easily with no predator to keep their population in check.

They're also dangerous.

"These are powerful animals," said Paquette, who plans to send "Old Bob" to a turtle preserve on the East Coast. "A human could lose a foot or fingers."

Experts said Old Bob might have been a pet, when he was small. Eric Akaba of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club said he probably was abandoned when he was young.

"He would have been a lot smaller than this," Akaba said.


Source : http://www.nbc4.tv/irresistible/3722147/detail.html

Posted by SoulJah at 7:06:00 PM

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