Why does turtle cry

Tears are also more obvious to see on land rather than in water. Turtles do not make a sound while crying but they make sounds during mating and other social interactions.

Some turtles can cluck, hiss, and make high-pitched sounds. These sounds are their way of talking to other turtles, and their expression of emotions. They do not have vocal cords but they can produce sounds that people cannot hear. Well, they produce sounds by removing air from their lungs. It was really interesting that people were able to capture images of butterflies drinking the tears of turtles.

Mud-puddling is an activity of butterflies and other insects to gather nutrients like amino acids and salts from moist substances such as wet soil, urine, dung, sweat, or carrion. Mud-puddling is different from acquiring nutrients from pollen and nectar sources. Since turtle tears are rich in sodium, butterflies drink their tears to obtain this mineral that they are deficient in. Some people who saw turtles when they are about to die saw tears from their eyes. This gland allows sea turtles to drink salt water while maintaining the salt balance in their bodies.

Other animals like sea birds have these specialized salt glands also. It also helps keep their eyes moist so they do not dry out, since nesting turtles can spend up to a couple of hours on the beach making their nest. Our hatchlings continue to grow throughout the nesting season! Turtle A now weighs grams and measures Use this information in our Hatchling to Yearling lesson plan. Your email address will not be published. Can't find an answer to your sea turtle question?

We are happy to help. This is just a mechanism built into their system. The gland produces salty tears on their eyes. Stay tuned to learn more about why turtles do cry.

Since most turtles spend their time in the water, you might ask yourself whether land turtles can cry as well. The truth is, land turtles cry as well. The difference between a land turtle and a sea turtle is that a sea turtle spends most of its time in the water, and seawater is salty. This means that they need to cry more to balance the salt in their bodies as well as their eyes.

Land turtles have other concerns. Their concern is not just about balancing the salt content in their bodies but also to protect their eyes from the harsh weather conditions. On land, there are dust particles in the air, sand, dry climate.

The turtles need to keep their eyes wet for this matter and keep the dirt away from their eyes. To do this, they have glands on both eyes that are responsible for the production of the salty tears.

These glands are working to maintain the balance. There tear then come out through the eyes and flush away the dirt in the eyes if there are any. Turtles do not only cry when they are laying eggs. You only notice this when they are laying eggs because this is among the short times that a sea turtle will spend time on land. The rest of the time, they are in the water.

They will do it anywhere. The reason behind this is to get rid of the dirt that gets into their eyes. They also do this to maintain a balance of salt in their body. They, therefore, cannot produce their urine to have more salt than the salty water they consume each time.

If they had no other way to remove the salt in their bodies, the salt would build up in their bodies, and this would have some ugly results. The Red-Footed Tortoise, which lives in South America, makes clucking sounds a bit like a chicken whilst the Egyptian tortoise sings when it is mating! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were so popular in the s that they caused a terrapin craze!

Every year we get offered dozens of terrapins that were bought when small and have now out grown their tank, they do not make good pets unless you are willing to do your research and invest a lot of money in proper housing and equipment. Sadly, many of our turtles are threatened, endangered or critically endangered.

Over collection for food or the exotic pet trade, habitat loss, marine pollution are all contributing to very serious situation indeed for many species. Drayton Manor Zoo is committed to raising awareness about turtle conservation and houses several species including Pancake tortoise and Asian Box turtle which both have dedicated breeding programmes? Why not come along to see what we are doing to help save endangered species and meet some of our fantastic animals.

Turtles and tortoises are different Well in the UK anyway!