Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I walked out into the turtle "porch" and saw Sparkles standing on some rocks, leaning against the screen, intently watching something. Then hubby came by on his lawn mower, and turned out that is what she was watching! As he disappeared around the corner, she would crane her neck to watch him as long as possible. When he reappeared from around the corner, she would stretch out again and follow him back across the lawn!

Wouldn't I love to know what the heck she was thinking! lol

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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.3.0 chickens
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

"what a big red apple "LOL!!

I often wonder what is going on in those little heads of theirs.
Our tortoise follows DH around when he's mowing but we think that's because she likes her food cut short.
Recently I watched our box turtles as DH mowed & was surprised that they didn't seem terrified by the big loud machine. They weren't as interested in it as your Sparkles, weren't craning their necks to see what was going on but they didn't run & hide either.
Our dog likes to ride the mower & pretend he's driving it, maybe Sparkles wanted to go for a ride too? LOL
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PHRatz

Heh, I believe box turtles are quite smart. Whenever they see me, they start "running" towards me. Its actually because they're either hungry or think that I have food. Its still funny.

Lol, hubby thinks it has something to do with the vibrations the mower makes. That makes sense.

I also think animals are a lot smarter than what we give them credit for. Sparkles fell in the pond ONCE! I pulled her out right away, and she has fallen in again.

She also climbed up the screen so high she couldn't get down...ONCE! Again I rescued her, and she has never done it again!

Obviously they easily learn from experience!
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
1.3.0 chickens
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

Very cute stories! LOL Regrettably, with my Cal king, deep thinking constitutes figuring out which end of the f/t mouse to start eating at.
But it's always fun trying to figure out what's going on in their little reptile brains.
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0.1 chickens (Condor)
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave, Lucy & Amy)
0.1 Halflinger horse (Crissy)
0.1 Normal phase California Kingsnake (Sophia)
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

Drosera does your Cal king stare at you when it's time to eat?
I adopted an African fat tailed gecko a year ago, I have 2 aquatic turtles inside the house as well.
The lizard & the mud turtle have hide boxes & will come out of the hide box to watch for any movement outside their tanks when they're hungry. The lizard will sit & stare at me.
The painted turtle swims real fast with his mouth open.
The mud turtle will make a small commotion when he sees me so I'll know he's ready to eat.
Animals crack me up.
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PHRatz

>The lizard will sit & stare at me.

My eastern hognose (cage is on my desk at work) has now started taking to coming out of the hide box and peering out the side of the tank when she's hungry. The last time, I just ignored her (actually I got distracted and forget to put food out to thaw to feed her that day lol). The next day, she was curled up inside the food dish with her face plastered to the side of the tank waiting for me to walk in the door ! Can't get anymore blatant than that.

I had a rough green snake some years ago that did something similar. green snakes require heavily planted tanks to hide in to reduce stress so it made it hard for me to keep track of the food intake (& I didn't want crickets crawling around possibly chewing on her at night)...so I had a tall container inside the cage up near the front of the cage in plain site (not hidden among the plants) to keep the crickets corralled in. Eventually it got to the point that whenever the snake was hungry and the food container was empty, she learned to just curl up around the top edge of the container and wait for me to drop food in lol. It was about the only time she was comfortable with being in full view of a big scary human.

Of course then there was the pair of baby bearded dragons who had full view out of the window to the front of the house that would go NUTS when they saw the FedEx truck pull up. It hadn't taken them long at all to connect the dots that the multicolored truck was where their cricket/fruit fly shipments came from lol. They would jump and scratch at the side of the tank as if they thought they could go out that window ROFL. When they got bigger and finally started on the veggies/greens (which meant less bugs to eat), they stopped that behavior.
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PHWyvern

Wyvern that is awesome about the beardies & the FedEx truck!
I used to believe what I read about herps being of lower intelligence & I believed it then I thought to myself...
they are lower in intelligence as compared to what?
Don't compare them to anything & you realize while they may not be on the level of humans, apes, dogs, birds, dolphins, pigs, whatever.. they aren't brainless idiots either.
This question I asked myself is what led me to realize how awesome they all really are. I can see that my frog isn't a genious compared to a human but for what he is he's not stupid, he seldom moves, he seldom makes a sound but he knows what to say when he's pooped in his home. We can hear him all over the house, I know in his language he's telling me to get that mess out of his home. lol
The chelonians are waaaay smarter than most people know.
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PHRatz

>>Drosera does your Cal king stare at you when it's time to eat?

Kind of. She's in a new cage now, and when I put the f/t mouse in her cage, she crawls out of her hidebox to the front of the cage and looks at me, bypassing the mouse entirely. Sigh... But she finds it quicker each time.
Occasionally, unrelated to feeding, she'll put her head on the door ledge of her cage and watch me through the glass. Or stay in her hidebox with just her head poking out. Security, and curiosity satisfied with that particular technique. She's a simple creature but really has some things figured out. I love seeing the little wheels in their heads turn.
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0.1 chickens (Condor)
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave, Lucy & Amy)
0.1 Halflinger horse (Crissy)
0.1 Normal phase California Kingsnake (Sophia)
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

My Cal King actually like "begs" when I approach her cage. She will come slithering to the front of the cage and follow my hand as i wave it in front of her. She also seems to know when it's feeding time. Like many snakes, she associates movement in her cage with feeding. When I stick my hand in to clean her water dish or remove shedded skin. She slithers up to my hand. I stop moving, and she sniffs my hand with her tongue. She recognizes my scent, then goes back to slithering around her cage. She's so awesome!

>>I also think animals are a lot smarter than what we give them credit for.

I totally agree with that statement.
I'm not feeding the turtles as often as I was when they first got here. IMO now they're acclimating, they can hunt on their own & they aren't stalking me today as they did a month ago. If they aren't stalking me then I know they don't need me to feed them.
Yesterday morning I opened the door to put food out for the wild birds & pick up the newspaper.
Hobo was near the gate, the moment he saw me he started toward me so like any good turtle slave would do, I came inside & got some food for him. He ate it then went on his merry way. He's got my number, that's pretty darn smart of him LOL!!
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PHRatz

>>>>I also think animals are a lot smarter than what we give them credit for.
>>
>

Speaking of smart animals:

Clever Whales Bait Gulls With Fish

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PHWyvern

Neat story about the whales.
I've noticed the box turtles learn from one another too. I've had some not want to eat what I've offered or they didn't reconize it as food, then when they see another eating it they think they're missing out on something so they'll try it too.
Shell E did that when Hope was here. We had a huge influx of June beetles one year, I took them out to eat but Shell E didn't get it until she saw Hope eat one. That's all it took.
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PHRatz

What a cute picture! I've noticed that the ornates seem to be much more interested in investigating their surroundings than the other box turtles I've kept (Eastern, three toe, gulf coast) and my female ornate is always the first to stand in the middle of the yard at prime window staring distance to check if I'm in the kitchen. She'll *always* pull her neck in her shell but still scuttle about while I put some food in front of her, even if she ran at high turtle speed to get to me. Everyone goes in a panic when I mow, so yours must be especially brave or especially attracted to red.

I have an eastern boxie too. He ran and hid as fast as he could when the lawn mower came around! Sparkles here seems fearless. If she gets herself in to a pickle, she looks like she is just calming waiting until I come and save her!

Maybe that's why she wasn't afraid of the lawn mower. She knew if it was a "bad guy" I would show up in the nick of time and save her from it! lol
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0.1.0 ornate box turtle
1.0.0 eastern box turtle
0.1.0 Australian shepard
2.2.0 chickens
3.2.0 children (do I still count the married ones?)
1.0.0 husband

>>Maybe that's why she wasn't afraid of the lawn mower. She knew if it was a "bad guy" I would show up in the nick of time and save her from it! lol

I can just picture you riding in on your white horse while wearing your white hat! LOL
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PHRatz