Gamera is really neat, Gamera is full of meat....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This afternoon, I was driving to the bank to deposit a check, on the way there, I saw what looked to be a rock in the other lane of the road…

…wait a minute, rocks don’t move…

It was a small turtle trying to cross the road, clearly it was out of it’s depth, so, I turned around, drove back to where it was, seeing at least four cars in it’s lane, I hoped they would miss it, I arrived back to where the turtle was vainly trying to struggle across the hot tarmac, and pulled off the road

I walked over to the turtle, a small Eastern painted turtle, picked it up, and took it over to my car, I put it in a sterlite container, then proceeded to drive to the bank, deposit the check, and drive home

I’m now back home, and Gamera (yes, I have named him that) is scuttling around unhappily in the tote, I’m not sure what I should do with him, there’s a brook down the road from our house, with a marshy side that I could release him in, but it’s also populated by snapping turtles, I could release him in our pond, we have a 1 acre bass pond on our property, but I don’t want him eating the small but stable population of bass…

Everybody sing!
Gamera is Really Neat
Gamera is Full of Meat
We believe in Gamera
**Disclaimer - Rocket Propulsion not available on this model, consult your dealer for compatible models

2

Is Gamera a friend to children? He’s sure cute, anyway!

And now I have that song stuck in my head.

3

Just curious, how does he communicate his displeasure?

4

She (I found out Gamera was actually a female, the lower shell was not concave like it is in males) was trying to escape, running for the corners of the tote, and making a hissing noise (which i’d assume was her flamethrower-breath trying to spark up)

I decided to set her free in the marshy brook, it’s much bigger than the pond, and has more hiding spots, she took quite readily to her new home, scuttling down the bank, and zipping away underwater, it also has a decent population of small fish (alewives) and freshwater eels, and loads of tasty marsh plants

The main reason I didn’t keep her as a pet is that I don’t have the right turtle care equipment, they need a 40 gallon tank, basking rock and a bunch of other stuff, my largest tank is a 20 Long, and that’s only good for hatchlings, I couldn’t give her a decent quality of life, so I set her free in a much better environment

5

I found a baby snapping turtle outside my back door the other day. It was about the size of a 50 cent piece. Cute when they are that size, but I still didn’t get my finger anywhere near his mouth.

6

Kudos for you on the turtle rescue mission. They suffer really badly when their habitat is fragmented by roads, for obvious reasons. I myself can’t help but stop and try to rescue turtles whenever the opportunity presents itself. I’ve even rescued snapping turtles (the tail is an excellent handhold - keep away from your thigh) on several occasions.

I still remember not being able to rescue a large gopher tortoise bravely trying to cross I-10 in Florida. He was struggling across the lane as fast as he could go, which was, unfortunately, not very fast. I barely missed him, and was pulling off the road, but he wasn’t so lucky with the 18-wheeler right behind me. :frowning: Ruined my day.

7

Adam Carolla has a great bit about Gamera.
"What does it say about Japan as a culture that they needed sequels to a monster movie about a enormous fire breathing dinosaur and they came up with Gamera and Mothra. Executives are sitting around a room and someone says “We need horrible monsters that will scare the crap out of everyone. Any ideas?
How about a turtle and a moth.
Excellent, our work is done here”

8

Last weekend I went to the fourth annual Godzilla and Friends film festival, at the nearby university. One of the films we viewed was Gamera the Brave, from 2006, the most recent Gamera picture.

It was actually pretty good, at least for that kind of movie. It showed Gamera, or rather A Gamera(turns out there can be more than one) hatching from an egg, and a young child taking care of him. One scene is reminiscent of ET, when the little Gamera is wandering through the apartment where the child lives. The kid’s dad is a cook, and the two of them live above the restaurant. Baby Gamera falls down the stairs and at one point confronts a cleaver that has fallen to the floor. He’s a little confused, but sees it as that blade faced monster from a previous movie, so he gives a baby sized gasp of flame breath. Dad comes home later and wonders why the cleaver has scorch marks on it.

Of course he grows much, much larger, and saves the Japanese people from yet another horrible monster that shows up.

I learned why the male has a concave shell. When the turtles want to do the nasty, the concave bottom shell of the male allows it to nest with the upper shell of the female, so they can get close enough to mate.

9

Plastron. The word for “bottom of the shell” is plastron. Your trivia for the day. :slight_smile: