Can Tortoises Swim? (with Pictures and Videos)

We all know that turtles are good swimmers, they spend most of their life in water after all. But what about tortoises, can they swim just as well?

Tortoises are land reptiles and can’t swim, despite their resemblance to aquatic turtles who live in water. Even if tortoises can’t swim they still need access to water for drinking and cooling off on hot days.

Turtles and tortoises are very similar in a lot of ways, but when it comes to swimming, they couldn’t be any more different. And the main difference that stops tortoises from being able to swim, and makes turtles great swimmers is their feet.

Flippers vs Feet

The main reason why tortoises can’t swim while turtles can is the difference in appendages, they have extremely different feet. Here is a close-up picture of the feet of each type of turtle.

Tortoises have feet, sea turtles fins, and aquatic turtles have something in between.

Tortoises have very solid legs, very similar to those of an elephant. Their feet have very solid and short toes, and each of them has a very thick and short nail. Those kinds of feet are very good at traversing rough terrain and digging. But they are far from ideal when it comes to swimming.

Aquatic turtles on the other hand have very different feet. Their feet are not as solid as the tortoise’s feet, and compared to the tortoise they have very long toes with webbing between them. The webbing between the toes, helps them push the water, thus giving them greater speed when swimming.

Out of all turtles, sea turtles spend the most time in the water. And as a result, they have the perfect feet for this. Actually, at this point, we can’t even call them feet because they are basically flippers. Those flippers are perfect for swimming, they have an elongated and flat shape that allows them to push water with a lot of efficiency when they are swimming.

Feet are one of the biggest reasons why tortoises can’t swim properly. But there is one other thing that stops them from being able to swim, the shape of the shell.

The Shape of the Shell

Here is a picture of the three turtle types, and the shape of their shell.

As you can see the tortoise has a dome-like shaped shell, the sea turtle has a very aerodynamic, flattened tear-shaped shell, and the aquatic turtle falls in between.

The dome-like shape is terrible at swimming, as it hits a lot of water and slows down the tortoise up to the point that it’s barely moving.

While the more streamlined shells of the aquatic turtle and sea turtle are great for swimming. 

Tortoises Can’t Swim, but They Can Float

So, tortoises can’t swim, but this doesn’t mean that they will go to the bottom of the lake like a rock, instead, most of them will be able to float on top of the water and even use their legs to change directions.

Here is a video of a tortoise that lost its footing while drinking some water and ended up in a river. You will see in the video that the tortoise is moving its legs underwater trying to get closer to the shore (in the end the cameraman takes it out of the water, as the tortoise didn’t seem to do a good job at getting out on its own).

What the tortoise is doing in the video might seem like swimming, but it’s really not. The tortoise doesn’t really have too much control over what it’s doing, it’s just moving its legs hoping to get out, and the reason it floats is due to the air in its lungs.

While searching for this video I found a lot of videos of people putting their tortoises in water to go for a swim, don’t do this.

Tortoises don’t enjoy floating, they are scared when this happens. While they enjoy soaking in water from time to time, they need to have their feet on solid ground.

And this brings us to a very important thing that everybody should know, whether they own a tortoise or not. 

Knowing the Difference

Turtles and tortoises are not the same, turtles live in water, and tortoises can easily be drawn.

I’ve personally seen people who wanted to help a turtle that they’ve found on the road, so they picked it up and wanted to put it in the lake, the only problem is that it wasn’t a turtle it was a tortoise. And while wanting to help, they could have drawn it.

There are a lot of easy-to-spot differences between turtles and tortoises, but the easiest to spot, and simple to remember is that tortoises have stumpy feet, and turtles have webbings between their fingers.

If you want to know more about the differences between turtles and tortoises you can check out this article: Turtle vs Tortoise – What’s the Difference? (With Pictures), but just remembering that they have different types of feet should be a very good start, that will prevent a lot of accidents, and save the life of quite a few tortoises.

Now that we cover this extremely important part, let’s take a closer look at the relationship between tortoises and water, and why some tortoises end up floating in rivers and lakes.

Tortoises and Water

Like all animals, tortoises need to drink water in order to survive, so you will usually find tortoises near sources of water, like lakes and rivers, even if they don’t live in them.

Tortoises also enjoy soaking in the water from time to time, especially on hot days. This is actually the reason why some tortoises end up floating on rivers, just like the tortoise in the video from earlier who lost its footing.

If you won a pet tortoise, it’s actually a good idea to make your tortoise a little “swimming pool” where it can soak on hot days. Just make sure that the water won’t go above their head, and that they can easily get out.

Can Baby Tortoise Swim?

Baby tortoises can’t swim either, and just like their adult counterparts they still need water to survive.

Due to their smaller size, it’s usually more common to see baby turtles floating on the water than adult turtles. This is because they don’t have the same strength in their feet and don’t have as much weight so they can more easily be taken away by moving water, and they can lose their balance easier, so they end up floating on the water more often than adults.

Final Thoughts

And that’s about it when it comes to tortoises and water, they need regular access to clean drinking water, and some shallow water in which they can get in when it’s hot outside, but they can’t swim, some of them can float but they don’t enjoy it.

Before ending the article I will list some other common questions that people have about tortoises and water, but in case you want to know something else that isn’t in this article, you can always leave your question in the comments section below and I will answer it as soon as possible.

Related Questions

Do tortoises drink water? Yes, tortoises need to drink water. Even if they don’t spend too much time in the water, they still need to drink it occasionally. There are no animals in the world that can survive without water.

How long can tortoises survive underwater? Tortoises can’t survive more than 1 or 2 minutes underwater. Unlike turtles, tortoises are not very good at holding their breath underwater, so they can’t survive for too long.

How long can tortoises go without water? It depends on the species, some tortoises species can go 4 or 5 months without water, while others can’t survive more than 1 or 2 months without water.

Can tortoises climb out of the water? In most cases, they can, but it really depends on the type of water, if it’s moving water like a river, they might struggle a bit. But in most cases, they can climb out of the water on their own.

How fast can a tortoise swim? Technically speaking they are not swimming, they are floating, and move their legs chaotically to get out, and this happens very slowly. Their feet aren’t built for this so they can’t move the water around them very efficiently.

Do you bathe a tortoise? Yes, tortoises can be bathed. Doing this from time to time can be good for them, but doing it too often is not a good idea. You should bathe your turtle once a month during the summer, and once every two months when it’s colder.

Do tortoises drink water through their tail? Tortoises can drink water through their tail, but not in big quantities. Their main sources of hydration are food and water. The ability to drink through their cloaca, which is on the back of their tail, is more of an added benefit of the cloaca, not the main way in which they keep themselves hydrated.

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