Sklaajira

Sklaajira

### Alias(es)

Sklaa, Jira, Shellbaby, Useless Reptile, Mud Dragon, Living Rock. Fancy One, Dragon Turtle, Turtlezilla, Velvety, Literal Dinosaur.

### Family

Rocku (owner), Shelldawn, Charm, (adoptive siblings) Butterscotch, Toaddy, Fritta, Starlight, (Immediate Balemates) Vallery, Coin, Goldie, Calcifer, Armin, Hammy, Binky (Extended Balemates)

## Biological Information

### Species

Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macrochelys Temminckii)

## Background Information

### Appearances

The Tank Bale

> Or we could just stay in the tank for once
>
> -Sklaajira in response to Val after she asks what they should do while their humans are away, shortly before getting yeeted out of the tank for another day of wacky shenanigans.

**Sklaajira Hesperus Atoms** is a captive bred, juvenile Alligator Snapping Turtle that's learning how to turtle, and is the main protagonist of The Tank Bale. He hatched at Loggerhead Acres Turtle Farm, and is the brother of Shelldawn and Charm, being the youngest of the 3.

## Personality:

Calm, friendly, introverted, and a little shy, but tenacious.

Despite his species' reputation for being hyper aggressive and not very bright, Sklaajira is a sweetheart, as well as being intelligent, interactive, and curious. He gets along well with his siblings, friends, and other family members. He makes friends easily and likes company, but is also happy to spend time just by himself. He is likely to be found a little outside the group, either observing, or occupied with something different to what the others are doing, and welcoming any siblings and friends who are done with their shenanigans and want a cuddle, talk, or nap instead. he likes investigating the world around him, both by exploring and by wondering about things that may not usually occur to a turtle to wonder about.

## Physical Appearance:

Sklaajira has coloring and patterns typical of a Gator Snapper; his scales are muddy shades of dark brown with darker stripes and spots throughout his body. His head is covered with numerous small dark lines and spots. He has stripe patterns on his shell, especially on his carapace, and has zero countershading on the plastron/underbelly. Notable features include an indentation of the upper beak/tomium on the left side, almost resembling a tooth or fang, which is unique to him, and two dark stripes running down each side of his neck starting at the corners of his eyes, and a "mask" over his eyes that don't connect at his snout. His dark brown coloring has a very faint blue tint. His eyes are dark brown with radiating blue patterns around them, and like all alligator snapping turtles, his eyes are surrounded by a star-shaped arrangement of fleshy, filamentous eyelashes, and Sklaajira's eyelashes are quite long.

Another notable feature is a minor injury to his tail, the scales on the tip haven fell off due to necrosis.

He can sometimes be seen wearing a blue spiked collar with a small silver ID tag. He can also sometimes be seen rolling around in a sparkly blue hamster ball.

Sklaajira exhibits what is called biofluorescence. When under blue or black light, his stripes, spots, and other patterns as well as his eyes, and osteoderms emit a brilliant bright blue glow.

## Abilities

### Natural Abilities

* **Swimming:** Freshwater turtles are strong swimmers. They have modified hands and feet that are webbed. These webbed feet enable them to swim and dive, giving them the ability to swim effectively
* **Breath-holding:** Sklaajira is capable of holding his breath for 40 to 50 minutes, nearly an hour.
* **Snapping:** Snapping turtles are most well-known for their strong bites, and although baby snapping turtles are tiny, Sklaa still has a helluva bite. Although he very seldomly if ever bites anyone
* **Luring:** Sklaajira’s most infamous power besides snapping is his species' unique ability to hypnotize others. The inside of his mouth is camouflaged, and he possesses a bright red vermiform (worm-like) tongue that he can wiggle around to hypnotize other creatures. Once fully hypnotized, his victims enter a trance with glassy-eyes, giving him the opportunity to strike. this ability is most effective against fish and fish and small creatures. This is called aggressive mimicry
* **Camouflage:** Snapping turtles have adapted to blend with their environment. They live in swampy waters and sandy river bottoms. Sklaajira’s dark brown shell and scales blend with the plant matter and murky water. He also has a broken pattern with shades of black and dark brown to camouflage. When standing still and/or while withdrawn into his shell, he looks almost indistinguishable from a rock
* **Burrowing:** He is a speedy digger that can tunnel through many surfaces, be it earth, sand, or gravel, relatively quickly, though his tunneling can sometimes lead him to not see what he’s heading towards on the surface.
* **Smell:** Sklaa has a great sense of smell, as snapping turtles have the substantial ability to sense odors in the air as well as in the water.
* **Aquatic Chemoreception:** He has special sense organs that can taste the presence of other creatures in the water
* **Night vision:** Being a nocturnal species, he can see in the dark

### **Unique Abilities**

* **Ocular illumination:** Sklaajira has the ability to project light from his eyes when he is in dimly lit areas.
* **Biofluorescence:** Sklaajira has the ability to reflect blue &/or black light hitting a surface and re-emit it.

### Skillset

* **Withdraw:** After a lot of practice, Sklaajira can withdraw nearly entirely into his shell for protection.
* **Musical Talent:** Sklaajira is a gifted, guitar player, and violin player.
* **Songwriting:** Sklaajira is able to compose music.
* **Reading:** Sklaajira can read English.
* **Drawing:** Sklaajira can draw, though his drawings are pretty crude.
* **Human Intelligence:** He is smarter than other reptiles, as evident by his ability to read, draw, and play music. He can also escape tanks easily.
* **Prehensile tail:** After a lot of practice, Sklaajira has taught himself how to use his long tail to grasp things.

## Trivia

* Sklaajira is based off my real pet snapping turtle, named after the king of monsters himself, Godzilla, who is also a socialized, very friendly and docile snapping turtle.
* Sklaajira is named after an in-universe fictional kaiju, Sklaajira
* Sklaajira’s themes are Newt by Michael Giacchino and Beyond by Patrick Patrikios
* Sklaajira's ability to biofluoresce is based off of the discovery of a biofluorescent hawksbill sea turtle spotted off the coast of the Solomon islands. As far as I know (at the time of me writing this) I don't know if biofluorescence has been scientifically documented in snapping turtles though.
* Sklaajira has some *Macrochelys schmidti* heritage
* Sklaajira is shown to be able to pull his head into his shell, however real life snapping turtles (And other snapping turtles in-universe) cannot do this. Sklaajira is able to do it because he grew up with pond sliders and thus practiced heavily to learn this skill, but it's still hard for him to do it, as his head always gets briefly stuck in the neck-hole of his shell before popping in. In real life though, it is biomechanically impossible for a snapping turtle learn how to do this.