It’s Friday! And we have a new installment in our series of reptiles scaling vertical surfaces: a turtle climbing a wall. Unbelievable.
If you know of other videos of reptiles scaling walls, by all means send the link (I’m not holding my breath).
h/t: Jim
Now that’s weird. I wonder if he was placed up there.
Reptiles do climb vertical surfaces.
Well, some do. And some don’t. We’re not talking geckos here. This turtle is clearly holding his own, but the video clip doesn’t show how he got to this position or what happened to the fellow. I’m not a turtle expert by any means, but it seems like an odd thing for a critter like this to do. Even weirder than a sheep-herding rabbit.
OK I could not resist responding. Sorry, it’s a peeve of mine when persons unfamiliar with a species decides what they can or cannot do.
These two videos show exactly what you want- a turtle climbing by its own will from ground up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqy2IHBfrpw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdILVO8s5f0&feature=related
Note the second video the keepers have placed wire barriers on top, obviously they were well aware that turtles do climb.
Do a search on youtube for climbing turtles, there are many. Including large snapping turtles climbing fences like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbhMtbTFSDs
It’s not unusual either this one climbed straight up a straight fence, not in a corner. More videos elsewhere.
It’s simple instinct- put a barrier in front of a turtle, it will either try to go around or climb over it. Also, pond turtles need decent climbing skills in order to bask- logs, rocks.
OK. Not as weird as a sheep herding rabbit.
(And, dude, “deciding” and being skeptical are not the same thing… I doubted and stated my ignorance. The the over-broad statement that “Reptiles do climb vertical surfaces” got me… thinking it unlikely to ever see a Ridley’s go up a wall… hence my “some do, some don’t”)
“a turtle climbing by its own will”
free will?
Will to go Work.
Work free?
An example of “free wall”.
The turtle had no choice.
Well, there was this kid who was trying to tell me about some sort of a gang of pubescent GMO Kung-Fu tortoises, but I’m pretty sure that was a comic book….
Cheers,
b&
Crazy! But where was he going? (Was it just to get away from the naked people?!)
my thought exactly. Where did it “think” it was going?
geckos, geckos, geckos!
Nice open-book rock-climbing moves! Everything but lay-back, which I think his anatomy (not to mention lack of the corner crack) prevents.
Another TMNT wannabe. As for herps scaling vertical surfaces – how about geckos climbing glass panes? Even better – geckos on ceilings – they may be horizontal but the beast defies gravity.
Oh, dear! I just realized why “herps” and never the diminutive, “herpies.”
Derp.
I can work with that…!
Oh come on Jerry, this is the card puppet video all over again. They HAVE TURNED THE CAMERA SIDEWAYS just like in the Batman TV series. And the Naked Man is lying on his side, just to fool you.
Where is he going? Why? Why, little turtle? Why?
Perhaps the turtle is under the influence of something akin to the Lancet liver fluke.
Or on drugs!
T. gondii making it climb toward Ceiling Cat?
There are a number of youtube vids of snakes ascending brick walls via the mortar joints.
When I clicked on the video, there was an advertisement for the Mormon Church preceding the turtle video.
Perhaps the turtle fell and was killed. He has been posthumously baptized into the Mormon Church.
And not just any Mormon video. It begins with some guy with a pipettor saying, “I don’t see any conflict between being a man of faith and a man of science.”
Puke! Everytime I see that one!
Oooh! So they are turtles all the way up?
But, but, where’s his safety net?!
This turtle’s old school, yo. No net.
Perfect to slack off and watch on a Friday. How very cool. I am impressed with how large that turtle was and his ability to climb. I just found this blog today (slacking off at work).
If he loses his grip, it will be turtles all the way down!
(Or, to be pedantic, tortoises, since he’s clearly not a swimmer.)
In point of fact, isn’t this a case of turtles all the way up?
Nice bridgeing technique.
Here is a chimneying dog
http://www.videobash.com/video_show/climbing-dog-24857
Looks like a wood turtle to me. They’re semi-terrestrial and supposed to be good climbers.
I had a rock climbing friend who could scale just about any wall. Straight up.
Although, I think he was a mammal. Still is, I guess.
Cool. This is probably what a space alien would think of humans painfully scaling rock cliffs.
I’m a long time turtle fan* but have never seen anything like this.
*I have a mated pair of reevss turtles that have been with me for about 20 years (which means they have been together longer than any of my marriages. My wife says that’s because it’s hard for turtles to get to a lawyer.)
Nah, turtles don’t like lawyers. Lawyers drive them up the wall.
Oh their god junior! Get down from there right now, you could fall and put your house out.
The poor tortoise’s owners are first-rate wankers. My immediate reaction would have been to place a cushion right at the corner where the floor meets the walls, just in case. The I’d brought the critter to a safer place. Apparently, the chance to get views on YouTube trumps every humane feeling.
MY first thought was: GET HIM/HER DOWN FROM THERE!! It’s like watching a creationist try to think (except that the turtle is actually succeeding).
Here’s a video of a robotic gecko climbing a wall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECpY2N5rgcM
Do robot reptiles count?
This video isn’t that shocking. After all, gravity is ONLY a theory. 🙂
When I was young I captured a California Pond Turtle (Clemmys marmorata). Believing these to be mostly aquatic, I put it into an aquarium and left to give it a chance to settle down. When I returned, it was gone. I spent 3 hours searching for it, turning the house upside down and looking under every piece of furniture in the house. I finally spotted it- it had climbed the curtain to the curtain rod and had been watching me from that perch.
That’s the species I was thinking of when I saw the video! It even kinda looks like one with the long tail and general shape.
They’re incredibly active, fast and agile. Very difficult to contain. I had one too when I was kid. Finally turned him loose in the river because he was too much of a worry — busy streets around and all.
BTW everyone — whatever this is, it is plainly NOT a tortoise of any sort. It’s an aquatic or semi-aquatic turtle.
European pond turtle Emys orbicularis subspecies perhaps?
And with that, the hare was awarded the winner of the race, by disqualification.
My brothers and I were avid box turtle ranchers and occasionally we’d find a “climber”. They always did it in a corner with a rough surface like this one. (I suspect this little guy was given a boost up over the relatively smooth, wide dark-colored base at the bottom of the wall.)
BTW, if any of you is contemplating box turtle ranching and intend to keep your turtles in a heated basement over the winter, THEY DO NOT NEED TO HIBERNATE UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS. DO NOT BURY THEM IN A BOX FULL OF DIRT AND JUST LEAVE THEM ALONE UNTIL SPRINGTIME!!
When I was extremely young , my dad got a box turtle and brought it home (I recall him finding it somewhere, but as I grew up in an area where box turtles don’t live, I have no idea whether he bought it or what). He built a little pen for it and stuck it on our deck. Tragically, the short wooden walls were insufficient at keeping the turtle contained, and it quickly escaped onto the deck, which was built above a cement patio.
I have no idea what happened to the turtle, but I doubt it survived the fall.
Of course, now that I think about it, Mom never liked the turtle, or any of the other lizards, snakes, and frogs Dad tended to bring home to show me, so perhaps she took it away and the part about the turtle escaping and falling off the deck was just a cover story.
My mom was like that, only one time, she allowed my brother a box turtle he found, only if she could name it: Putrid. I was very young, at the time. I thought it was a real name, like Gertrude. No wonder she laughed so hard.
Is that the 5th member in TMNT?
ok, cool, yes, but not surprising. note the textured right angle of the walls and the five points of contact (four feet and a tail). Chelydra serpentina are well known for scaling wire fences to get from pond to egg laying sites, Platysternon megacephalum with their long sturdy tails have been known to climb trees, and Agrionemys (testudo) horsfieldii have rough pads on the tips of their tails which aid in scaling rocks and other impediments. Turtles rock! you weak minded cat lovers, why is this so shocking? now, go donate money to Turtle Survival Alliance or we will go teenage mutant ninja on your ass!
Pretty sure I’ve read somewhere that turtles do not have much of a fall-avoidance instinct, odd as that might seem. I know my two Russian torts will climb up on and clamber off of anything, often landing on their “chins.” At any rate, it seems most of them would risk severe damage falling from beyond a certain height. In all the instances shown, it’s certainly a man-made (i.e., not something they’ve evolved with, such as logs to get over, rocky areas to surmount, etc.) obstacle they’re climbing, and it makes me cringe. Interesting, yes, but something that good chelonian owners should definitely design their enclosures to avoid, I should think.
Us urbanites just have no idea either of what animals want or what they are capable of. It would be interesting – and sobering – to study the occasional relationship between scepticism and ignorance.
This is especially funny in light of an article written by Bryan Fischer last fall in which he included the following rhetorical argument in favor of creationism:
+1 !
They’re speaking Portuguese, no? My guess is some kind of Brazilian kinosternid.
Here in NE N America, there are little kinosternids called stinkpots that climb quite a bit. They’re known for falling out of trees into canoes.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u4GS2gHQV4&w=420&h=315%5D
We don’t know that the turtle started from ground level. They might have just placed it there for the purpose of doing the video. Who knows? Lots of fake videos on YouTube. I hope it wasn’t hurt.
…Use your climbing claws…
…and go silently!