Suicide Turtles

[sebbie0983]

Hi, I've had two emydura subglobosa turtles for just over 1 year now, these turtles are going strong but have never had any sense of height perception, when I'm holding them they are normally trying to get out of my hand (which would result in a nasty fall), or when I have them sunning themselves and walking around I have to watch incase they decide to fall off a ledge, it's as though they don't know they're about to hurt themselves either, if they were about to walk off a cliff, they would. Suicide turtles!

I was just wondering if this normal as I don't know how long a turtle would survive in the wild without perception of height or the option of looking down, can anyone let me know this? thanks

 

[scorps]

i think they would just rather be in thier enclosure (in captive turtles cases) then being held by you (no offence of course) they are jsut trying to get away thats all.

scorps

 

[Splitmore]

they are reptiles, they don't have enough brain power to have any perception of height or ability to sum up a situation to asess if there is any risk involved. Like scorps said, if they are trying to get away they obviously aren't happy being handled so might be best to leave them alone, on the ground in their enclosure

 

[-Peter]

In a natural environment they would have water as an escape route. So if they leapt from a basking site it would be into water. They also hate being held and as Splitmore says, they have very little concept of spaciality and even less when stressed.

 

[Joshua VW]

As Peter said, when in the wild their escape route would be the water so they would just dive so they probably don't really have depth perception.

 

[sebbie0983]

Yeah, they definitely don't like being handled, I try to keep that to a minimum but I have had one out a bit lately due to a tiny bit of fungus on his hand so I let him walk around. Even when he doesn't look stressed and is just walking around he almost falls off couches or anything he decides to climb on. Well he would if I wasn't there to catch him everytime. I was just curious, I would think being such great climbers they should be able to get down as well, oh well, funny creatures