by Greg Mayer
As a herpetologist with a cat, I’m always interested in feline-reptilian interactions, and here’s a South African tortoise that either doesn’t like cats, or likes them so much that it gets close enough to annoy them and drive them away. Note that the orange tabby, at least, appears to regard its interactions with the tortoise as playful, much as Peyton regards her interactions with me (in the second video), thus demonstrating, once again, the rudimentary moral sentiments of cats. (Try to ignore the dreadful soundtrack.)
This clip from South African TV provides the context of the clip.
The original video by Salvelio Meyer, sans soundtrack, has had embedding disabled, but you can see it at Youtube, by clicking through the image below.
Why that turtle thinks he’s a little godzilla!
Perhaps he needs some lessons in manners from this serpent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IG4kceZBWA&feature=fvw
I used to have a leopard tortoise (good size, about 15″/38cm who had the run of the house. I got a large dog (rotweiler mix) who was greatly intimidated, barking and posturing aggressively, because the tortoise simply was completely unafraid of him. It was humorous to see the tortoise crawl toward dog as the dog alternately postured and jumped out of the way