Down south, five years ago back in 2016, I know, yeah, it's really been five years.

A 15-year-old boy saw a remarkably large snapping turtle in his neighborhood and thought it

would be a cool idea to take a quick photo with the animal. He successfully caught this behemoth, heaved them up out of the water, and,

estimating their measurement against his own body, figured that the animal was about 30 inches

wide.

A massive turtle, worthy of a photo.

So, he posed for the shot, and his presumed photo op did the snapping turtle's version of a photo bomb.

The turtle took off his index finger with a single bite and hopped back into the water.

Say cheese. The boy had been bitten by an alligator snapping turtle.

Macrocellus, Timanicki.

Now, this story wasn't in the news, as far as I can find.

I'm reading this directly from a case report in a scientific journal, Wilderness and Environmental

Medicine. The authors, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine,

the authors, Johnson and Nielsen,

are really funny.

Hilarious for an academic article, actually.

In the text, they refer to the 15-year-old boy

who has just lost his finger to a turtle attack

as the, quote, self-described naturalist.

And they note that, quote, neither the turtle nor the digit could be recovered, end quote,

as if an attempt was made to get the turtle back to complete the photo.

Now, I feel bad for this kid.

...