Turtoise or a Tortle??

[TommyZ]

Yes, pun intended..... I have a tort, who i swear has channelled her deep inner turtle. This girl will all day every day, sit,lay, bask and even sleep right in her water dish. There can be no dehydration, i see her drink all the time,gets her soaks etc....deep inside, she craves her missing webbed toes... lol

Anyone else have a tort who self soaks basically 24/7 ?

 

[ascott]

One of the redfoot torts here does this often...the dish is near directly under the basking spot....and one day I noticed after the tort went onto another spot in the enclosure that the water dish was putting off mild steam from the overheat heat....so I figured the tort enjoyed the vapor type soak....with the weather here not in the 80+ I can totally appreciate how good that must feel....ahhhhhh imagining summer right now...

 

[N2TORTS]

Hola Z man .....why yes I have a few that seem to crave their H20...I'm waiting for the day they ask me if I can install a bubbler!

 

[FLINTUS]

My male hingeback constantly soaks in their bath. That said, they are meant to fish-and actually dive under water- in the wild. I did test this out a while back out of curiosity. I placed them on some rocks and let them-if they wanted to- dive into 2ft deep of water with some mushrooms-held down between rocks- at the bottom. One just floated as it was too light and didn't know how to go down, the male just sunk straight to the bottom so I had to quickly get him out but the other female actually dived-kind of kicking her legs to go down-, pulled the mushrooms out from between the rocks and brought them back up in her mouth, onto the rocks and had a nice meal. It was quite interesting to see that they do actually 'dive' for their food. Don't worry, no animals were harmed or stressed to do it, but thought it was worth running a little experiment with them.

 

[TommyZ]

Re: RE: Turtoise or a Tortle??

Hola Z man .....why yes I have a few that seem to crave their H20...I'm waiting for the day they ask me if I can install a bubbler!

Hey Bud...was Blackey always bathing back at the Cove? If you recall?

 

[N2TORTS]

Hola Z man .....why yes I have a few that seem to crave their H20...I'm waiting for the day they ask me if I can install a bubbler!

Hey Bud...was Blackey always bathing back at the Cove? If you recall?

Yes ......I'll look for some pics ...

 

[TommyZ]

Re: RE: Turtoise or a Tortle??

My male hingeback constantly soaks in their bath. That said, they are meant to fish-and actually dive under water- in the wild. I did test this out a while back out of curiosity. I placed them on some rocks and let them-if they wanted to- dive into 2ft deep of water with some mushrooms-held down between rocks- at the bottom. One just floated as it was too light and didn't know how to go down, the male just sunk straight to the bottom so I had to quickly get him out but the other female actually dived-kind of kicking her legs to go down-, pulled the mushrooms out from between the rocks and brought them back up in her mouth, onto the rocks and had a nice meal. It was quite interesting to see that they do actually 'dive' for their food. Don't worry, no animals were harmed or stressed to do it, but thought it was worth running a little experiment with them.

Did ya catch the dive on video by any chance? Id looooove to see that

 

[Moozillion]

My male hingeback constantly soaks in their bath. That said, they are meant to fish-and actually dive under water- in the wild. I did test this out a while back out of curiosity. I placed them on some rocks and let them-if they wanted to- dive into 2ft deep of water with some mushrooms-held down between rocks- at the bottom. One just floated as it was too light and didn't know how to go down, the male just sunk straight to the bottom so I had to quickly get him out but the other female actually dived-kind of kicking her legs to go down-, pulled the mushrooms out from between the rocks and brought them back up in her mouth, onto the rocks and had a nice meal. It was quite interesting to see that they do actually 'dive' for their food. Don't worry, no animals were harmed or stressed to do it, but thought it was worth running a little experiment with them.

COOL!!! I would love to see that!!!

 

[FLINTUS]

Sadly no. I planned to film it out of interest, but then couldn't find the camcorder and my phone was out of charge. When the weather warms up we might have another go with the one that likes to dive and I'll remember to find the camcorder and charge my phone beforehand lol. From what I've read of reports from people watching them in their natural habitat, they have two methods of 'fishing':
~Dive down to catch slow moving river bed animals.
~Or they have been reported to be almost like a crocodile, lying mostly submerged and still under water, and then as a fish comes along they stab their claws through it.
They are truly semi-aquatic. Sadly, very few photos/videos of them in their native range are around.

 

[ulkal]

Sadly no. I planned to film it out of interest, but then couldn't find the camcorder and my phone was out of charge. When the weather warms up we might have another go with the one that likes to dive and I'll remember to find the camcorder and charge my phone beforehand lol. From what I've read of reports from people watching them in their natural habitat, they have two methods of 'fishing':
~Dive down to catch slow moving river bed animals.
~Or they have been reported to be almost like a crocodile, lying mostly submerged and still under water, and then as a fish comes along they stab their claws through it.
They are truly semi-aquatic. Sadly, very few photos/videos of them in their native range are around.

Do all Hingebacks do that? Or just erosas?
This is really cool piece of info.

 

[bouaboua]

How fun!!!!!!!!

 

[FLINTUS]

Sadly no. I planned to film it out of interest, but then couldn't find the camcorder and my phone was out of charge. When the weather warms up we might have another go with the one that likes to dive and I'll remember to find the camcorder and charge my phone beforehand lol. From what I've read of reports from people watching them in their natural habitat, they have two methods of 'fishing':
~Dive down to catch slow moving river bed animals.
~Or they have been reported to be almost like a crocodile, lying mostly submerged and still under water, and then as a fish comes along they stab their claws through it.
They are truly semi-aquatic. Sadly, very few photos/videos of them in their native range are around.

Do all Hingebacks do that? Or just erosas?
This is really cool piece of info.

I believe it is just erosa and homeana. I saw some little bits about it in the few accounts of them in their natural range-another note of interest, is according to one study, 80% of the time they are found in micro climates usually of 20-22 Celsius-about 70 in Fahrenheit- and this(swimming) has been confirmed to someone in Ghana who I managed to make contact with. However, I have heard of nogueyi being in shallow rivers in the savannah and trying to catch amphibians. From what I know, they have the 'swimming' ability of erosa and homeana if they are at a certain weight.