Here in Central Florida, those of us on acreage are plagued by Gopher Turtles. The little bastards constantly dig holes in our yards. If your not careful when walking or mowing you’ll end up with a broken ankle or a stuck mower. They are a protected species, so you can’t shoot them And the only way to get rid of them is to have a professional turtle mover come in and relocate them. Of course if you do that more will just move in, so you learn to live with them.
Our dogs don’t particularly like the things and if they catch one out in the open they’ll give chase. It’s amazing to see how fast these things will move towards their hole when they see a 150lb Great Dane headed their way at full speed. If they don’t make it to the hole in time the dogs will start barking at them. This is meet with a hissing sound from the turtle. The Great Dane will them proceed to “play” with the turtle and push it around like a ball. The turtle usually ends up upside down at some point. When this happens it pees itself. WTF?
Is this a defense tactic or is the turtle peeing itself because of fright? Before any of you start accusing me of bring sadistic and cruel, not once had the dog ever harmed the turtle. It goes into it’s shell and Gunner the Great Dane will get bored and look for something more interesting to do. Gunner is doing exactly what he is supposed to do and that us to protect our home. He sees these turtles as intruders and investigates. I don’t really mind them, but I do get tired of the holes they create. But, I find it sad that it’s only offensive weapon is a stream of piss.
Defensive tactic? Does it work? All I know is there was a dog in my neighborhood when i was growing that would come to visit our rabbit hutch and was more interested in eating rabbit poop than the rabbits themselves.
I had a feeling that urine & feces wasn’t gross to all members of the animal kingdom, but I haven’t done much research into matter
First, I think this wouldn’t be their only defense. They have a shell.
But, about the peeing - one of the ways animals can die of “internal injuries” is by rupturing the bladder and spreading urine all over their insides. This is true of us in automobile accidents, for example. Emptying the bladder makes this less likely. I can imagine responding to threat by peeing would have an evolutionary advantage.
By the way, this is a reason why, if you are about to crash, it might be a good idea to wet your pants. Though, this does make the “wow that was close” category of events more embarrassing.
Sure it does. What I’m asking is if the peeing, which has happened every single time I’ve seen this is an involuntary reaction of fear or is it a legitimate defense tactic. Is the pee supposed to somehow scare of a predator by the way of smell or taste? The only time I’ve witnessed this is when the turtle is flipped over. Obviously when flipped over it’s soft side is exposed, so is posing itself done as a defense tactic?
Also, I realize the turtle had it’s shell for defense, but that is not the same as an offensive weapon for defense. Dogs have teeth, cats have claws and the poor turtle has piss. Seems like he got the short end of the sick on that one.
Defense. Many tortoises use this tactic and it is another good reason not to disturb endangered desert tortoises if you can avoid it - they will void their large bladders that they use for storage and leave themselves vulnerable to dehydration down the road.
Tortoises just don’t have much to work with. The shell is 99.5% of their defense. The rest comes down to hissing, biting and peeing on you. Voiding digested material, either by vomiting or expelling waste is a pretty common defensive tactic of reptiles generally. Horned lizards even use autohaemorrhaging - squirting blood from their eyes.
They may be locally abundant, but across their entire historical range they are not doing so hot. I can find desert tortoises just about anytime I drive into the Mojave Desert, doesn’t mean they aren’t threatened.
What does “voluntary” mean for a reptile? When you disturb a turtle, it instinctively pees. It has this instinct because instinctively peeing when threatened is in general good for survival. If it weren’t a legitimate defense tactic, it wouldn’t be part of its fear reaction.
I think a lot of turtles and tortoises pee on themselves when frightened. If I’m out riding my bicycle and see turtles crossing a busy road, I’ll often pick them up and move them to the side of the road. One of the first things I learned was to hold them out at arm’s length. This applies box turtles and snapping turtles located around here.
That’s like asking if a rabbit runs from a predator because it is scared, or as a defense tactic. It’s a fear response, which we choose to label a defense tactic.
Not really. If it press out of fear that’s one thing. But if the peeing if done as a legitimate defensive move that’s something else. So, maybe a better phrasing is when the turtle pees is it trying to use that pee to harm or frighten the predator that is attacking it? Does it time the pee and only release it at will to get the must effect or does it have no control over it’s bladder and pee from fright?
Good freaking question. I really can’t see what propose they serve other than to dig holes. But like I said, other than the holes I’ve no problem with them. The issue with their holes is that they tend to be well camouflaged and I’ve stepped I’m more than one. I’m not looking forward to breaking my ankle. Personally if I could I’d just pick them up, throw them in the back of the truck and drop them of twenty miles down the road, but you can’t do that. I’ve heard the neighbors state they wish they could shoot the bastards, but I don’t kill things just to kill things.
I think they are the stupidest animals in the face of the planet however. You would think after a year of the dogs chasing them they would have already packed their turtle belongings and moved somewhere else. But, I suppose they have a lot of effort invested into their existing tunnel network.I know of one tunnel that us more than 200’ long with holes on either end. I guess I wouldn’t want to move and start again.
Again, no, that’s not something else. Those are the same thing. The things that creatures do out of fear, they do because those things are defensive moves, and using them when afraid is beneficial.
I’m not sure this is a fair assessment. The dogs haven’t killed or injured a single turtle. Meanwhile, the dogs keep away other potential predators that are hungry enough to do some real damage. I’ll put up with being slobbered on and rolled around if it means not being eaten.
Oh, in that case, you’re asking whether the benefit comes from the urine being on the threat, or just from it not being in the turtle’s bladder? That, I don’t know (though even if it’s the former, you wouldn’t need much aim).
Of course it does, if it is sufficiently scared. Its the fear that causes it to lose its tail. Why would a lizard make such a sacrifice if it was not in fear for its life?
What we describe as fear is our bodies putting into effect all of our defense strategies, whatever they may be.
I would agree that fear reactions are not the same as a defense tactic, but using a lizard dropping its tail is a terrible example. That is clearly both a fear reaction and a defense tactic. The lizard doesn’t drop its tail through some unemotional analysis of the pros and cons*. It gets scared enough, it drops the tail.
Some fear reactions could be unrelated to defense. For example, if a turtle pees when it is afraid, but the peeing provides no defensive benefit at all, then it’s just a fear reaction.
*And I think Chronos’ main point in talking about this is that the reptilian brain isn’t advanced enough for an unemotional analysis. When it feels fear, it reacts in a pre-set fear response. Presumably, this pre-set response also aids it in surviving long enough to reproduce and thus the fear response is simultaneously a defense tactic. To try to separate fear and defense in an animal with such a simple brain is not really possible.
