28 thoughts on “Altruism or accident? You be the judge”

  2. Mating call. See them heading off to the bushes now? Cue 70’s pop jazz music and dim the lights.

  3. Accident? I’ve rarely seen such obvious intentionality on the part of an animal. Now as to motive? hmmmmh

  4. I can’t get the video to play, so I assume the upright tortoise righted the supine and struggling tortoise. Is that what happened?

  5. Definitely intentional. But there’s a twist.
    If you listen carefully, you can hear the ‘stricken’ turtle mocking the other one, shouting “Remember that time you got sooooo drunk you couldn’t get up?? You looked like this!”
    Hence the reason for the charge whilst shouting “I really hate you!”

  6. I used to breed that tortoise species, and I’m almost positive those are both males, and that the upright fellow is aggressively charging his unfortunate stablemate, and it’s just chance that he inadvertently helps the hapless beast that’s floundering on its back. Males can even ram females pretty aggressively during breeding season, so the upturned tortoise could even be a gal. The ramming is intentional, but I suspect that the result is not; just typical mating behavior for many tortoises.

    1. I think that is right. And note that the video cuts out after the inverted tortoise is righted. I predict that in the unedited version the rescuer continues to intentionally charge its rival.

    3. I used to breed that tortoise species,

      I’ll cede to your professional experience on the circumstances. But if you still have friends / colleagues in that game, it would be very interesting if they had continuous-recording footage from their farms/ nests/ habitats from which the prevalence of such interactions could be assessed.
      Intentional doesn’t seem to be an issue for anyone. Motivation … requires a properly designed study. I’d guess there is a PhD on either side of the question.

  7. Could this be a form of play, where they tip each other over and then right the other one and do it again? I’d like to know how common this is etc.

    1. Why? It seems to me that altruism is extremely unlikely to be involved here. Why would you think altruism more likely than, say Aaron Siek’s hypothesis in comment #6?

  9. If the turtles are unrelated, it might represent altruism at work.

    The hill looks like it’s made for toppling turtles. Probably this scene has been repeated daily for years.

  11. I’ve seen other videos where this happens. Way too many accidents, tortoise insurance must be pretty harsh.

  13. I see no reason why altruistic behavior produced by kin selection can’t spill over into similar behavior toward non-kin, just as parental behavior can spill over when we see a mammal suckling another species’ young, or feelings toward a parent spill over into worship of an imaginary deity or a fascist leader. (I’m sure there’s a name for that, but R. D. Alexander’s class at U of M was a loonnnnnnnng time ago.)

  15. As already mentioned above, both tortoises (African sulcata tortoises (Centrochelys sulcata)are almost certainly male. And almost equally certain, the fella ‘rushing to the rescue’ is the reason why the other tortoise was on its back in the first place…
    Male sulcata tortoises will ram each other relentlessly, sometimes until death. This happened in a conservation project I’ve worked with, where in the beginning they kept several males together in one area. Not anymore…
    Sorry to burst the altruism bubble 🙂

  17. I used to tip over my little brother all the time. Nothing altruistic about it. More likely it was because he let the air out of my bike’s tires or some similar mischief.

  18. Strange, really strange… There is a need of more research on reptilian cognition

  19. Maybe she is saving her boy or lady friend. There is more to the world than kin selection.

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