It’s #WorldTurtleDay! Here’s a thread of some of my favorite turtle fieldwork encounters over the years, starting with this young snapping turtle who refused to tell me who ate all of the sardines out of our turtle hoop trap...

Next is a hatchling spiny soft shell turtle I found on a path making its way to the river! #WorldTurtleDay

...We made sure this hatchling made it safely to the water and then watched the little guy immediately bury himself in the substrate! This was likely this turtle’s very first interaction with water in its life. The urge to bury is an instinct! #WorldTurtleDay

I spent one summer swabbing native Illinois turtles to check for disease prevalence. This young painted turtle was much too small to be swabbed! #WorldTurtleDay

I had the privilege of assisting with a Blanding’s turtle reintroduction project one summer. Individuals of this threatened species were raised in captivity for 3 or 4 years and then released into the wild in an attempt to increase their chance of survival #WorldTurtleDay

...Here is a clip of a curious Blanding’s turtle who stuck around to check us out instead of quickly swimming away after we released him #WorldTurtleDay

While in Trinidad, I was lucky enough to observe a Leatherback sea turtle come ashore to nest and lay her eggs. Leatherback sea turtles are THE LARGEST turtles on the entire planet. This female was almost 8 FEET long and probably weighed close to 1.5 tons #WorldTurtleDay

...Leatherback sea turtles are heavily protected and local researchers perform their data collection in very safe ways that do not disturb these massive turtles. Here, we helped a researcher count how many eggs this female was laying for a study on clutch size #WorldTurtleDay

Meet the speediest pancake in the world! This spiny softshell was found in our turtle hoop trap. We collected disease swabs from her and then promptly released her back into her habitat. She wasted no time getting away from us #WorldTurtleDay