h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would wholly recommend terrapins (known in the US, where terrapin means something different, as freshwater turtles) as excellent companions. After several years of savage digit-shredding, they do come to recognise the hand that feeds them. They are cute when small and satisfyingly interesting in an indestructible unstoppable-object way when large. They live for twenty to thirty years, so they don't wear out very quickly, and they eat anything that moves and most things that don't.
In addition, with a little preparation they can handle owners going on holidays of a couple of weeks duration at least, or much longer if you can convince a neighbour to hurl in the odd steak or two. They also remove any irritatingly expensive mirror carp, cats, ducklings or herons from your pond with very little fuss.

Well said terrapins are gods arent they visit my homepagehttp://www.h2g2.com/U110796

Yeah, so I see. Wait until yours get big... before I went globetrotting I had seven red-ears which lived in a heated 750-gallon two-tier pond in my garden. The oldest one I had from the egg since I was four years old, and she finally died of liver failure at the ripe old age of 27...

Wow your a veteran I'm hoping to get another red eared terrapin very soon. E-mail at [email protected] . Terrapins are the best how many animals have a protective shell, great swimmers, eat anything(including fingers) andcan go quite fast on land.

They are gods!