Who knew?
It turns out that when an alligator snapping turtle is crossing the street there is a speed at which it wants to cross the street, and nothing else, not cars zipping by and not a gentle nudge from behind with the toe of a shoe, will persuade it to move any faster.
I saw Raphael here this afternoon crossing the street and threatening any cars that swerved to avoid him. He was only a few hundred feet from an elementary school that was set to belch forth students within only a few minutes, and I didn't feel that it would be at all healthy for an unattended third grader to find Raphael either alive or as a crunchy-on-the-outside pancake. I stopped to assist him in reaching his destination, and it wound up taking much longer than expected.
It turns out that alligator snapping turtles not only have a truly awe-inspiring bite strength, but they can spin in place and bite faster than a Yorkshire terrier whose tail just got stepped upon.
Yes, that's my size nine-and-a-half sneaker, and yes, he's laughing at me.
With a few more experiments I also learned that snapping turtles can jump. Seriously. They can almost clear the ground. They can also growl, and their neck can extend to LIKE NINE FEET LONG!!
Eventually I found a long stick that I had no difficulty convincing him to bite, and so fastened I was able to drag him to the relative safety of the nearby creek I'm fairly certain was his intended destination from the beginning.