No matter the type and size of your pet, you can be happy if it reciprocates the love you showcase.
Every pet owner loves it when their cats and dogs hug them when they return from work. But what is the experience of those who have turtles? Do they receive love from their pets?
Turtles can express feelings in many ways. They can run and hide when scared or look for you when they’re happy.
This article helps you find out whether turtles and tortoises have feelings. Hopefully, after going through this piece, you’ll know how to observe your pet’s emotions.
How Do Turtles Show Feelings?
Besides being nonviolent, turtles are pretty mysterious reptiles. Your pet turtle will not hurt you.
However, that can change swiftly if they feel threatened and have to protect themselves from getting hurt. Due to this, many pet owners want to find out whether their pets have and can show some feelings.
If they can protect themselves, does it also imply that they can feel sad, bored, or happy? And if they can express feelings, then they have emotions.
While turtle owners report that their pets have feelings, a good number of them still don’t agree with this fact.
It’s hard to make a conclusive statement about whether or not turtles have feelings. However, we can consider a few things to help us find the truth.
Regardless of what you think, reptiles are a group of animals that can encounter curiosity, contentment, pain, and fear.
You can notice this if you study their body language carefully. Also, it’s imperative to recognize that turtles might not be able to show love, feel angry, get sad, or express happiness.
Can Turtles Show Emotions
It’s a straight now if you want to find out whether turtles can show human-like emotions. They can’t express sadness, happiness, or love. While they have brains, the parts of their brain that can tell these emotions are inactive.
Maybe you’ve seen some turtles fight each other, so you think they can express anger, but that’s not true. Since these animals can’t express anger, they can’t fight in rage.
Survival matters to turtles the most, so they’ll do anything to survive, including fighting each other. We can only state that turtles might not be able to show emotions similar to those of humans.
Boredom and stress are some of the few emotions your pet turtle might express. Being curious animals, your turtle can quickly get bored if its tank has nothing new to explore. To kill boredom, your turtle might start to climb the tank, begin digging, or navigate the tank.
The reptiles might try to escape the tank if you stay there and do nothing to entertain them. You can calm the turtles by providing them with scopes as a pet owner.
Can Your Turtle Identify You?
If your turtle can recognize you, then you can be sure that you share some closeness. This is because it’s impossible to remember something or someone you’re not attached to.
Turtles can indeed recognize you if you’re their owner. However, it’ll take some time for them to know you as their parent.
For instance, it might take time to know and recognize specific individuals in a home, with many people taking turns in feeding title.
There’re several senses turtles can use to recognize and or perceive their owners. We’ve listed some of them below.
Sense of smell
Turtles can use the sense of smell to recognize their owners. They can smell and perceive you based on your scent.
Once you put your hands in their tank, they can pick your sense and store it in their brain. To the pet turtles, your scent becomes your identity.
Sense of Sight
Turtles can see you clearly since their vision is like that of humans. Turtles have eyes, so you should expect them to see you each time you go to feed them. They’ll then store your shape and size in their brains as they visit you daily.
Sense of Hearing
Turtles have a strong sense of hearing, so they can hear what’s happening around them. Therefore, they’ll listen to your voice as you speak around them.
Since their life can be dull, turtles like to pay attention to sounds coming from different sources, and your voice is one of them.
How Do You Know a Happy Turtle?
You can quickly know when your turtle is scared. For example, your turtle will show fear by either running away or finding a place to hide. Since your pet won’t laugh, smile, or jump up and down, how will you know when it’s happy?
A happy turtle will always stay in the same spot for some time. That’s because it’s comfortable being there.
It’s not scared, bothered, or worried about what will happen next. Sometimes, your happy turtle moves and starts looking for its favorite human.
Looking for their favorite human looks like a happy cat would do. So when your turtle comes to your spot, you should know its content.
The bottom line is that a content turtle will stay in the same spot, come to find you, or much on things, or bask. You should be worried if your animal hides or flees the scene, as this shows that it’s either scared or unhappy.
At first, you’ll struggle to understand your pet, but that will change with time. Since turtles are not aggressive, they’ll react slowly. But you’ll know how best to handle them as you watch their body language and how they respond to stimuli.
Closing Thoughts
Now you know whether or not your pet turtle can have feelings. We might not have discussed this title extensively, but these few details can help you understand your pet better.
It would help if you were not afraid to touch your turtle because they won’t hurt you. However, you should avoid making them feel scared or threatened as that might make them aggressive.
Do you still have any questions about turtles and how they show emotions? You can let us know by commenting below. Don’t forget to share this piece with anyone who might find this helpful information.
