Red eared sliders are aquatic turtles, this means that they spend most of their life in water. But they will also come out for air occasionally. So why do they spend so much time in the water if they need air, and can they drown if they stay too much underwater? I decided to do some research to find out the answers. Here is what I found out.
Can Red Eared sliders drown? Yes, Red Eared sliders can drown if they stay too much time underwater. Like all turtles, Red Eared sliders have two lungs that need air to function properly, so staying underwater for too long will result in them drowning.
Red Eared sliders are aquatic turtles so they are pretty good at spending a lot of time underwater, without having to come out for air. But there is a limit to how much they can stay without drowning. In the rest of the article, I am going to cover how much time they can stay underwater, how they manage to stay underwater for so long, and why they spend so much time underwater if they need to breathe air.
How Long Can Red Eared Sliders Stay Underwater
How much time a Red Eared slider can stay underwater depends on the activity that it’s doing underwater. If they are swimming they can usually stay for 20 to 30 minutes. If they are just sitting there and barely doing anything they can usually stay underwater for 10 minutes more than that so around 30 to 40 minutes. When they sleep they will be able to spend at least one hour underwater without having to get out for air.
I have two Red Eared Sliders, and they spend most of their time underwater. During my research, I decided to time them and see how much time they spend underwater on average. And the result is 11 minutes for my 4 years old slider, and 15 minutes for my 6-year-old slider. I tried to eliminate the times they spend less than 1 minute underwater because the times would have been to something like 2 and 4 minutes. I also want to add that my turtles are very energetic and like to move constantly, so maybe their personalities also contributed to the results.
The longest time that one of them spent underwater was 25 minutes. But I can’t say that my experiment gave me the exact maximum amount of time that they can spend underwater. This is because my turtles were able to do whatever they wanted, so my turtle just decided to go out for air, it’s hard to tell if he did so for no reason, or because he was in danger of drowning. From what I observed I can guess that he did so for no apparent reason since he definitely didn’t seem to be drowning.
But since my experiment was to determine the average time my turtles spend underwater and the maximum amount of time they stay underwater, I can say I am really happy with the results, especially since they line up with the rest of the research that I did.
Another interesting thing about how much time Red Eared sliders can stay underwater is that under certain circumstances they are able to stay submerged for entire months without having to come out for air. When a Red Eared slider is hibernating underwater they can stay for 3 months underwater without any problem, sometimes they even manage to stay up to 6 months without drowning. But the way they breathe and manage the air that they have is a little different than they normally do.
Now let’s see how Red Eared sliders manage to stay for so long underwater without drowning.
How Red Eared Sliders Manage to Stay so Long Underwater
First, let’s take a look at how Red Eared sliders breathe.
How Red Eared Sliders Breathe
Like all turtles, Red Eared sliders breathe through their noses. They inhale air into their two lungs, and they exhale it, just like all animals do. What makes turtles different is that unlike most animals they don’t have flexible torsos, so the mechanics of the process are a little different. When you and I inhale air, our torso will make itself smaller, and when we exhale the torso will expand. This can happen because our torso is made out of independent ribs that are somewhat flexible. The torso of a turtle is covered with a shell, which is also made out of ribs, but those ribs have all fused together to form the shell, and by doing so they’ve lost all their flexibility.
Because turtles don’t have the same flexibility as most animals, the way their lungs and their muscles in that area are set up completely differently. The kind of setup that they have allows them to have better control over how they breathe. Thus allowing them to hold air in their lungs for extended periods of time, without too much effort.
Red Eared Sliders Metabolic Rate
But being able to hold the air longer won’t do them any good if they have to use it all up very fast. Here comes into play another thing that is exclusive to reptiles, and that is the fact that they are cold-blooded. This means that they are unable to generate their own body heat, so they rely on the heat of the environment to maintain their body temperature. The fact that they are cold-blooded also means that they have a slower metabolic rate.
The metabolic rate is basically the speed at which a body is functioning. A fast metabolic rate means that that animal will have a lot of energy and it will be very active, but it will also mean that it will need a lot more food, water, and air. A slow metabolic rate means that the animal will be less energetic, it won’t always be very active, but at the same time, it won’t need too much food, water, or air.
All those things will allow a turtle to spend a lot more time underwater than most animals can. But they alone don’t explain how they manage to stay for 3 to 6 months underwater without drowning. Turtles, so Red Eared sliders too, manage to stay that long underwater thanks to something that is called the cloaca.
The Cloaca
The cloaca is the orifice positioned at the bottom of the tail. And it’s mainly used as the only opening for the digestive, reproductive and urinary tract. And it can also be used to breathe underwater.
The cloaca works in a similar way to the lungs, when the turtle is inside the water the cloaca will act like a pump that will suck water inside and after it gathered all the oxygen from it, it will expel the water out, and then it will start over.
But even if the cloaca allows Red Eared sliders, and other turtles, to breathe underwater, it won’t allow them to do so for very long. The amount of oxygen that the cloaca is able to obtain from water is very low. Under normal circumstances, if the turtle stays underwater for 30 minutes, the cloaca is probably responsible for 2 or 3 of those minutes. But during hibernation things are completely different.
When turtles hibernate their metabolic rates decrease very much. So the amount of oxygen that the cloaca is able to produce on its own is perfect in this situation. Normally the amount of oxygen that the cloaca produced didn’t let them stay underwater for more than a couple of minutes, but when they are hibernating, the cloaca becomes the only way that they can gather oxygen. And they are able to do so for at least 3 months without any problem.
Now, there is still one more question that needs to be answered, why are Red Eared sliders spending so much time underwater if they need to constantly come out for air?
Why Red Eared Sliders Spend so Much Time Underwater ?
This question doesn’t have an exact answer, but most theories seem to be tied to survival and evolution.
Let’s be fair Red Eared sliders, like all turtles, are very slow on land when you compare them to other animals, and this can be a problem when it comes to defending from predators and catching prey. So by going into the water, they have access to better defenses from predators, and, they also have access to more food sources. And the area around lakes and rivers is also full of small insects that can be eaten by turtles, and the land is usually filled with vegetation that serves as protection and a food source for the turtles.
So because they couldn’t excel on land they chose to combine both land and water. This is just a theory that makes a lot of sense in my opinion, as I said there is no clear answer to this at the moment, there are just a lot of theories that are very similar to this one.
Is My Red Eared Slider in Danger of Drowning ?
If your turtle is able to reach the surface to get air. And if it has a solid and stable surface where it can rest while it’s outside of the water then no. Your turtle is definitely not at risk of drowning.
The only other thing that you have to be careful about are decorations. If you have something that resembles a note or a bag in your tank then take it out immediately. In the wild most turtles end up drowning because they get stuck in a net or a bag.
So if you make sure that there is nothing that can trap your turtle underwater, and that it has a safe place where it can stay on the surface, there is no chance of your turtle drowning.
Related Questions
Can Red Eared sliders sleep underwater? Yes, Red Eared sliders can sleep underwater. They actually prefer to sleep underwater. When they sleep their metabolic rate will go down, so they will be able to spend a lot more time underwater than they normally would.
How long can Red Eared sliders live? As pets, Red Eared sliders can live anywhere from 30 years to 50 years. In the wild, they usually live for 25 to 30 years. The difference is so big because there are a lot of predators and other dangerous things in the wild that will end up hurting the turtle, thus reducing their lifespan.
How big will a Red Eared slider get? In general, they reach sizes between 9 and 12 inches. But in general, the females will get bigger than the males.
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