ADVERTISER TRIBUNE (Tiffin, Ohio) 25 April 06 Snakes and turtles (Jill Gosche)
A ssslithering sssnake made itsss way through Linda Rose'sss belt loop.
Kindergarten and first-grade pupils at St. Mary School watched as the Eastern fox snake made itself at home around the waist of Rose, who is a program director and naturalist for Seneca County Park District.
"That was pretty cool," said Heather Riedlinger, a kindergarten pupil. "I thought snakes didn't have bones."
Rose kept the surprise hidden in a knotted pillowcase.
"I bet you don't have one of these in your pillowcase at home," she said.
When it was time to remove the creature from the case, she asked the children to guess what was tucked inside. They guessed it might be a turtle or a lizard. One guess was correct, and Rose pulled out the snake.
"Remember, I would not bring something that would hurt you," she said. "He's very fast, so I never take my hands off of him."
Rose said the Eastern fox snake, native to Sandusky County, is a species of concern because the numbers are decreasing.
She told the children to flick their tongues in and out and then place them on the roofs of their mouths.
"What do we smell with? Our noses," she said. "A snake smells with his tongue."
Rose said people typically eat five to six times per day, while the snake eats once every two weeks.
"That's the kind of grocery bill I want," she said.
Rose said the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes lies in their eyes.
"Most of us are never going to be close enough to see this," she said. "The poisonous snake's eyes will look like long slits, whereas a non-poisonous is going to have round pupils. The black spot is going to be round."
Riedlinger said her favorite part of the presentation was when the snake slithered around Rose's wrist.
"We learned about snakes. We learned they can lay eggs," she said. "The poisonous snakes have slits for eyes, and the non-poisonous snakes don't."
Rose also brought a turtle shell along for the children to view and touch.
"Indians would have used this for a calendar," she said. "This belongs to a snapping turtle.
A boy said, "I knew it."
The children wanted to know how the turtle who lived in the shell died.
"You really don't want to know," Rose said.
But the children insisted.
"I had turtle soup," Rose answered. "You eat cows. Some people eat wild animals."
She said she encountered a snapping turtle in a park last week but left it there. Reaching into her duffel bag, she pulled out a baby snapping turtle.
The children responded "awwwww" in unison as Rose held the small turtle with a long tail and flat body between her fingers. She said she didn't bring larger snapping turtles because they might snap.
"He is a water turtle. You do find snapping turtles in this area," Rose said. "Flat turtles are water turtles. É If you have a domed one, it's a land turtle."
She dug into her bag again and pulled out a larger turtle with a rounded shell. She told the children box turtles lay five to seven eggs at a time on land.
"They'll lay their eggs, cover them back up with their legs and leave, never to see their children," Rose said.
Marsha Marinis, a third-grade teacher, welcomed Rose and Mark Zimmerman - a civil engineer for Seneca County who talked about taking care of the Earth - into her classroom. She said she likes inviting experts to speak to her pupils.
"I think they'll remember these hands-on kind of things. They've been looking forward to this. É You don't always have to be sitting at a desk to be learning," Marinis said. "We try to do as much hands-on activities as possible."
Snakes and turtles