Some still photos taken by my mother and little sister, (both shutterbugs) of the aforementioned beensy turtle, with Canadian $1 and $2 coins for comparison. As children, we kept some larger painted turtles as pets for a year or two, and referred to the hatchlings as ‘loonie turtles’ because of their ridiculously small size.
To reassure you animal rights maniacs, we only kept them for a year or two because we had to go on vacation over the summer and released them into a private pond with an already healthy population of eastern painted turtles.
Looking back on it, I just realized that I never even held the little guy. ;_; He was so fuckin’ tiny, with his tiny little webbed feeties and his tiny claws. I love their ultra-serious, frowny little faces.
