Turtle Butts

[timbicile59]

I just got an e-mail stating some turtles can breathe through their ass.

My first thought was, this can’t be true.

I’m fairly old but very new to computers.

I tried wiki and got nothing

any help?

[Chronos]

Interestingly, the second Google hit for “turtle butt” takes you to an answer on this very site.

[Q.E.D]

Talk about bad breath.

[lissener]

It’s true. (Used to breed several different species of turtle.)

They pull water in through their cloaca and take in oxygen through their intestinal walls.

[Munch]

What?

[timbicile59]

@Chronos

Interestingly, the second Google hit for “turtle butt” takes you to an answer on this very site.

I thought i had read evey Straight Dope . I would remember that.

And ewww.

[KGS]

Ewww is right:

[Sea cucumbers] actually disembowel themselves when disturbed: they eject the digestive tract and respiratory tract from the anus. The innards crawl around by themselves for awhile outside the animal, and as they are sticky they can also entangle an attacker. The sea cucumber then blithely crawls off to regenerate its digestive tract.

Somehow, I managed to finish my Baja Fresh Burrito Mexicano while reading that.

[crowmanyclouds]

IIRC the sea cucumber thing was (in part?) the inspiration for Theodore Sturgeon’s The Girl Had Guts.

CMC +fnord!

[Kuboydal]

It would seem to me that there might be some difficulty in determining the difference between indigestion and the common cold.