What kind of turtle is this? It’s about 5 inches long, so presumably quite young.

Lively small turtle

The triple ridges with radiating patterns look to me like an Alligator snapping turtle, Macroclemys temminckii. I don’t see anything else among the 29 turtles of Georgia that is even close.

I don’t know what it was doing out in the open, 500 feet from the nearest water, which is our cypress swamp.

Anyway, it provided yet another opportunity to remind our dogs: no turtles!

-jsq

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