Day 13: Amazing Soft Shelled Turtles

I apologize for not posting as fast as normal. With the storms that passed through St. Louis last Friday night our power did not come back on until yesterday. So, now that I have internet again...I shall blog about last Thursday. 

To start the day off I started cutting up fruit and vegetables for the chunk salad for the giant tortoises. After that I started working on preparing all of the salads with the other intern. Today we went around distributing as we made the salads which went faster. I finished up the salads and then had to go back around and label all of the feed cards for the animals I had fed since I had forgotten to do that before. 

After lunch I misted the Galliwasp enclosures. At least today the soil was not as dry so it did not take as long as the first time. I cleaned the black worms, did the dishes, and cleaned a few cricket cages. The highlight of the day was seeing the two narrow-headed softshell turtles get fed mackerel. These turtles are found in southeast Asia and can grow to be over 260 pounds! They are huge! It was amazing to see them get fed because they would snatch the fish in a blink of the eye! It was so fast that you would definitely miss it if you blinked then. Instantly, the fish is gone, they just shallow it whole. Amazing!

Narrow-Headed Softshell Turtle