Guys Spot A Super Chunky Snapping Turtle Sunning His Rump At The River

The other day, J. Santore and a friend were kayaking up the Chicago River when something caught their eyes.

There, perched atop a patch of land in the middle of the water was a massive snapping turtle.

Truth is, he was pretty hard to miss.

Moving in for a closer look, Santore got a better peek at the turtle’s exquisitely plump physique — his pudgy posterior being warmed beneath the bright springtime sun.

“[He] had to have been a 60-pound snapping turtle,” Santore told The Dodo.

The turtle was so robust, in fact, that it almost appeared he was wearing a shell at least a few sizes too small.

Here’s footage from the turtle sighting, including Santore's colorful commentary:

Santore was kind enough to pepper the turtle with plenty of body-positive affirmations, but that was actually more of a detour from what had brought him out to the river that day.

As a botanist, Santore has a popular social media presence under the name Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t, in which he discusses plants and ecological issues, as he did in his full video from the Chicago River.

Seeing the turtle — plump as he was — came as a welcome sign of healing to a waterway plagued with pollution issues in the past.

“[It] was cool to see how much life we seen on what was once a river that threatened a trip to the ER for a tetanus shot if you fell in,” Santore wrote.