Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I tried an experiment to see how quickly a turtle could see another turtle. I put one of my three-toeds in the grass-it was fall and leaves were in the grass about the same color of these turtles shells. I put another turtle about 10 feet away and within 5-10 seconds the turtles saw eachother. I could barely see them! I thought their eyes must be able to see a glow off their shell!

I started to think about this when I put a baby turtle in the same pen with some adults and they right away picked up on the fact there was this new turtle in the pen-even though the baby was only 1 1/2 inches long and about 3/4 inch tall. At the time I thought shell color must be some kind of beacon for turtles, or their eyes may pick up some kind of rays off the shell-like being able to see in ultra violet. Has anyone noticed this in their turtles?

I don't know if you would consider this the same thing but....I am waiting for a pen to be built for my little 6 mo. old cherry head, and right now I have him in a 75 gal virvarium. I blocked off a small potion of this viv. and put my little 3 mo. old Three Toed in that section, as they both need a lot of humidity at this stage of their lives, and it is only temporary. The first day, my Cherry Head knocked down the little pitition, and started digging where the baby Three toed was. I don't know if he was just curious, or agressive or what, but they are in different enclosures now.

Some of my pens share a common wall. These particular pens are constructed of modified landscaping timbers. I can swear that the turtles know if another turtles is on the other side of the wall. Sometimes, I keep sexes separated. The males will almost always pace the walls behind which the females reside. Could they have seen me place the females there? They are usually hidden when I do it. It seems to be irrelated to food. Steph once stated that Dr. Mitchell did a study that basically hints at box turtles not being able to detect each other by any other means than visual. Hmmm, sixth sense maybe?

I don't know about the other guys on here, but I can definitely pick my Wife out of a crowd at 100 yards...she certainly has the "glow"

Ken and all...I think the study you're mentioning was done by Dr. Belzer in PA, not by Dr. Mitchell. Dr. Belzer's paper is cited pretty frequently.

It certainly is a subject that's ripe for further investigation.

On the other subject, I have found that having a 6'4" tall husband is very useful when trying to find him in a crowd...

My mistake. Thanks for clearing that up.

I would think that ground vibrations and smell would play a part in this. A lot of ground dwelling and burrowing animals are very sencitive to ground vibrations. It helps them find specific food that out of site and alerts them of approaching preditors, and they know exactly whats what based on specific vibrational patterns and frequency.
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

sensitive and predators, sorry, this site could use a spell check feature, I would use it a lot
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

Hey man, I have never thought of vibrations. That is brilliant! Nice job, thanks for pointing it out.

I've often thought about the vibrations...I also think that their eyesight and hearing is much better than we might assume.

Turtles probably use more than one way to identify each other. But here's something I though was interesting.

My DH and I were walking in the woods. At 2 different times he spotted a box turtle. He had to point them out to me, because I had a hard time spotting them. What I find interesting is that DH is very color blind, which means browns, oranges, reds, yellows, all look pretty much the same to him. Maybe he is seeing the turtles more the way another boxie would see them and thus they were easier for him to spot?

Does that make any sense?
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
1.0.0 Yellow belly slider
0.1.0 Red belly cooter
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.11.0 chickens
1.0.0 Dutch(rabbit)
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

Actually, yes. Your DH is possibly seeing more texture and contrast between object because his vision is less 'cluttered' with color.

Native flowers are colorful to us...hybrids are even more colorful. But the native flowers have attributes that we may not see the way animals and insects see them.

Some native plants have what amounts to well marked landing strips on their petals that we just don't see. Neon 'vacancy' signs to attract pollinators.

Hybrid flowers are just colorful, and don't necessarily attract pollinators in the same way.

So, there's a whole visual world out there that we're not attuned to...as well as a world of sound, vibration, smell, etc.

BTW, if you're interested in keeping your garden 'alive' in the best sense, read a book titled "Noah's Garden".

Cheers

More info on the Noels garden please, what is it about?
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1.0 pastel ball python
0.1 mojave ball python
0.1 normal ball python
0.2 3-toed box turtles
2.3 eastern box turtles
0.0.5 3-striped mud turtle
1.0 northern diamondback terrapin
2.1 tiger salamander
1.1 red-sided garter
1.0 anerythristic red-sided garter
1.1 Iowa snow plains garter
1.1 Het butter stripe cornsnake
0.1 anerythristic motley cornsnake

The book is titled "Noah's Garden".

You can read more about it here:
Link