Leaping Tortoise?

[Tuchovgray]

Hey guys,

I saw my golden Greek doing something a bit unusual this morning. I cleaned her cage and as soon as I put her back in she put her head on the ground and hopped forward. She did it 3 times. It almost looked as if she was jumping for joy that her cage was clean. Anyone else ever see that before?

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

lol i don't know but it seems kinda funny

 

[peasinapod]

Hey guys,

I saw my golden Greek doing something a bit unusual this morning. I cleaned her cage and as soon as I put her back in she put her head on the ground and hopped forward. She did it 3 times. It almost looked as if she was jumping for joy that her cage was clean. Anyone else ever see that before?

My hermann's tortoise will very rarely leap at/tackle me when he's SUPER mad. He prefers biting normally.

He will tuck his head into his shell, shift most if his weight towards the back and then "leap" forward.

 

[Tuchovgray]

My hermann's tortoise will very rarely leap at/tackle me when he's SUPER mad. He prefers biting normally.

He will tuck his head into his shell, shift most if his weight towards the back and then "leap" forward.

That's exactly what it looked like. So you're saying she pissed!

 

[Yellow Turtle01]

She might havegotten mad she got disturbed, so you could clean!

 

[russian/sulcata/tortoise]

are you sure your "tortoise" is not actually a frog!

 

[TurtleBug]

He will tuck his head into his shell, shift most if his weight towards the back and then "leap" forward.

When a male Greek tortoise is ramming a female (courting), his body movements look just like that. He pulls all his weight towards the back and quickly shoots forward. BAM against the female's shell. He can do this very quickly and in repetition. All you hear is knock-knock-knock...

By the way, females can do this kind of ramming too, especially when they are near egg laying.

 

[dmmj]

aggressive males lunge at females, same way I do.

 

[Peytons torts]

My tortoise sage did this when I was moving his blueberry lol

 

[Moozillion]

My Hermann's, Elsa, doesn't exactly "leap," but she can "lunge" with the best of them!!

 

[Star-of-India]

are you sure your "tortoise" is not actually a frog!

View attachment 102283

Yes, you better take a closer look at it!

 

[Alaskamike]

This is interesting. I think the key info is you cleaned the cage. You could interpret this in tortoise terms ' disturbed my habitat". An aggressive lunge or two establishes dominance and ownership all over again for the territory.

I saw a video of a large sulcata " playing" with a ball. One of the kids left it in the yard and the tort was walking up to it and hitting it with his nose. The ball would roll away - he pursued it and rammed it again. This went on as he moved that red ball all over the yard. You can hear his owners laughing in the background.

They seemed to think he was playing - having fun. My interpretation ( guess) is somewhat different. A territorial aggression to remove an interloper .