Turtle Pickup Lines

"What's a nice turtle like you doing in a swamp like this?"

"You polish my shell, I'll polish yours."

"I know this place where we can get the best seaweed..."

As enticing as these conversation starters might be, the traditional turtle pre-mating ritual is much different. Here we find our suave young male (we'll call him John Turtlevolta) swimming up to our rather unimpressed female (Olivia Newturtle John). In his best "You're the one that I want, ooh, ooh, ooh, honey" move, he raises his front flippers and, with blurring speed, proceeds to slap Olivia repeatedly upside the head. We asked the info dude at the Missouri River Museum what the turtles were doing and he said, "Oh, he's trying to get her attention."

Ya think? I guess lack of subtlety isn't confined to the males of the human species.