In general, turtles are very docile and peaceful creatures, so you wouldn’t expect to see one of them trying to bite you or someone else. But like every animal, turtles must have some way to defend against predators, and biting seems to be a very efficient way for most animals to defend themselves.
Do turtles bite? Yes, turtles do bite. In general, a turtle will only bite if it feels in danger, or they mistake you for food. But in general, your turtle will not bite you without any good reason.
Now that we know that a turtle will bite, let’s take a closer look at the situations where it will bite, how powerful the bite is, and what to do and what not to do if you are bitten.
When a Turtle Can Bite You
As I said in the beginning most turtles will try to bite a human if they feel that they are in danger or if they had mistaken them for food. The case where they feel in danger is a little more obvious, but the one with the food is a little stranger, so let’s start with that one.
When a Turtle Mistakes You for Food
A turtle is generally able to tell the difference between a human and a small piece of meat or a vegetable, but under certain circumstances, they can easily mistake one of your fingers or toes for something that kind of resembles something that they would normally eat. At this point, you have to remember that turtles and turtles are opportunistic feeders, regardless if they are pets or wild, so when they see something that they think that they could eat, they will jump and bite it without hesitation.
A turtle can also bite you if you try to feed it with your hand, they usually do this by mistake, sometimes they can mistake one of your fingers for food, or they can just simply bite it without intent.
From my personal experience, if you want to avoid having your turtle mistake your toes or fingers for food, you should never walk without shoes around them, especially if there is tall grass in the area or any kind of dense vegetation, and you should avoid feeding them directly with your hand.
Now let’s move to the next common case when a turtle will try to bite you.
When a Turtle Feels in Danger
If a turtle feels that it’s in danger, and there is no way for it to escape, it will think that there is no other option than to attack before it’s attacked, so it will try to bite you.
In general, a turtle will not be the first one to initiate any kind of interaction, ( you can find out why in this article: Are Turtles Social or Solitary Animals? (with Pictures and Video) ), this also means that they also won’t think of biting you as soon as they see you.
Wild turtles are relatively easy to scare, so if you get too close to one that is not entirely used with humans, you can make it think that you want to attack it. Some of them won’t necessarily think this as soon as you start walking towards them, but if you touch them they will usually start running, try to hide in their shell, or it will try to bite you.
On the other hand, pet turtles, are a lot more used to humans, so they won’t try to bite them as soon as they touch them. But if you handle them too roughly, there is a good chance that it will try to bite you, especially since it has no place to run.
When it comes to handling pet turtles you have to remember that their origin and their age are also very important. If the pet turtle is older, it means that it spent a lot more time near humans, so it will not get scared by them so easily. And the origin of the turtle is also very important, if the turtle comes from the wild it will definitely be a lot more defensive, and it will try to bite a lot more often than a turtle that was raised in captivity.
Now that the most common situations when a turtle will try to bite you are covered, let’s see how powerful the bite of a turtle is, in this part, I will also tell you how it feels to be bitten by a turtle from my experiences.
How Powerful Is the Bite of a Turtle
When we talk about how powerful a turtle bite is we have to look at the factors that influence the bite. There are a lot of turtle species, and they are quite different, even individuals in the same species can be quite different, so it will be kind of pointless to talk directly about species, instead, we are going to look at the following things: the diet and the size.
The diet. If you want to find out if a turtle bite will be powerful or not, the first thing that you want to know is if it eats meat or not. In general, turtles that eat meat will have a more powerful fire than those that don’t. This is not because the ones that don’t eat meat don’t get enough proteins or something like that, no, they don’t meat because this is the way that they have evolved.
Meat is a lot harder to bite than vegetation, so you will need a more powerful bite, and a sharper mouth. So the bite of turtles that eat meat has evolved to be a lot more powerful, and in the case of some species, they also evolved a sharp beak that will make the bite a lot more powerful and a lot more dangerous.
The size is a very important factor as well, the bigger the turtle the more muscles it will have, the bigger the jaws will be, so the bite will grow in power along with the turtle.
At the moment there are no scientific data available about the bite force of a turtle, the only data I could find is about snapping turtles. If you want to know more about that you can read my article right here: Are Snapping Turtles Dangerous? (with Bite Facts and Videos), in this article, as the title implies, I talk about how dangerous snapping turtles are, I give more information about their bite, and I also explore the reasons why they are a lot more aggressive than other turtles and turtle species. If you are interested to find out you should check the article out.
Even If I couldn’t find any reliable information about the power of a turtle bite, I can still tell you about my first-hand experiences with turtle bites.
I own a female Hermann tortoise and one male Box turtle. And as you can expect I’ve been bitten by both of them multiple times, and I can easily tell you how it feels.
Before telling you how the bites feel, let me tell you how big and what diets they have, this way you will have a better understanding of how those factors come into play. The hermann tortoise is around 6.5 inches and is a herbivore, so it doesn’t eat meat at all. The box turtle is 6 inches and it has a diet that includes meat, fruits, and vegetables. So both of them are about the same size, but their diet is considerably different, now to the examples.
In the general box, turtle bites are not that bad, but the amount of pain you will feel depends on the area that was bitten. The most common places you can get bitten by a turtle are your fingers and your toes. The fingers can get accidentally bitten when you feed them with your hand. And if you keep your turtles in an outdoor enclosure and you walk through it with slippers on you can expect them to bite you thinking that your toes are food.
When your fingers get bitten by a box turtle you won’t feel too much pain or any kind of discomfort, fingers are relatively thought and the bite of a box turtle isn’t that powerful. You will feel a little pain but nothing to bad. You can probably expect to have your skin turn red for a few minutes, but that is usually all.
If a box turtle bites your toe then you will feel about the same amount of pain that you would feel if you were to hit your toe in the table’s foot, and the pain goes away just as fast. It can sometimes leave a few bruises but they should probably go in a few hours ,or in a couple of days in the worst case scenario.
For this article I also let my box turtle bite my forearm, the pain was a little worse than the rest of them, but nothing that bad. It left me with a few signs, but they went away shortly after.
My box turtle was a full grown adult when he bit me, so a bite shouldn’t normally be more powerful than the one I experienced. If a smaller box turtle bites you you should experience even less discomfort.
Overall I would say that the pain you feel when your box turtle bites your finger is the same pain you will feel if you were to bite your finger, it’s not unbearable pain, it’s more of a discomfort. The biggest difference between when you bite your own finger intentionally, and when a turtle bites your finger is that you didn’t expect that. Over time I kind of got used to the idea that I can get bitten by them, so the pain started to be less significant, and I personally think this is because the element of surprise is starting to go away.
The bites of the hermann tortoise were somewhat easier to endure, but the difference was not that significant. The pain went away just as fast, and signs left after went away at almost the same rate. If I were to rank the pain from a box turtle bite as a 4, I would have to rank the pain from a hermann tortoise as a 3.5, there is a small difference, but nothing major.
Now that you have an idea of what a bite feels like, let’s see what to do and what not to do if you get bitten by a turtle.
What to Do if You Are Bitten by a Turtle
In the case of a small, harmless bite, like the ones from my turtle, there isn’t much that you have to do. Just make sure that you wash your hands before you do anything else. And try to leave the turtle alone for a while, as I said they usually bite because they are stressed, they feel in danger danger, or they thought they were eating food, no matter why they bite you they will feel a little agitated for a while, so it’s better to leave them alone.
If you see any blood you should drop everything that you were doing and go disinfect the wound, even if the wound is small it can still get infected, and that can be very dangerous. I would also recommend going to the doctor after you have disinfected it. A doctor will be able to tell you if any further treatment for the wound is needed.
If the turtle bites you and doesn’t want to let go, you have to wait until it releases the bite. Doing anything else will only worsen the situation. It might seem counterintuitive but it’s the best way to act in this situation. If after a minute it still won’t let go, then you should dry to pour some water on it, but do so very carefully.
What Not to Do if You Are Bitten by a Turtle
If a turtle bites you and doesn’t want to let go, you don’t want to pull or to hit the turtle. If you hit the turtle it will only apply more pressure to the bite, and will stay there for longer. If you hit the turtle until it loses its life, or goes unconscious things will only get worse for you, because at that point the jaws are going to apply even more pressure, and the turtle won’t be able to release it. And in this process your wounds are only going to get worse. So as I said, even if it seems counterintuitive, the best thing to do is to peacefully wait until the turtle releases the bite.
After a turtle bites you you have to be very careful what you do with your hands, do not put them near your mouth, or near food. Turtles can carry a lot of germs and sometimes even bacteria, so spreading them is not a good idea. Instead go and wash your hands as soon as possible.
If a turtle bites you because it’s stressed, don’t stress it any more. Just leave the area and leave it alone. If the turtle that bit you is your pet turtle, you should let it rest peacefully for some time and come back again later, if you have any business with the turtle . A couple of hours should be enough time for the turtle to calm down.
It’s good to know what to do and what not to do if you get bitten, but even better is to know how to avoid, so let’s talk about as well.
How to Avoid Getting Bitten
The best way to protect your fingers is to keep them away, so don’t feed your turtle with your hand, you can just place the food on the ground. Turtles don’t care how they get their food as long as they get it.
If you want to protect your toes then you should hide them, so don’t wear slippers, or any kind of footwear that will keep them visible.
If you own a turtle and you don’t want to get bitten than you should make sure that it’s well fed. If a turtle is hungry it will try to eat anything that it’s remotely similar to food.
Don’t stress out turtles, even if they are peaceful by their nature, they will still attack you if they are stressed out and they feel in danger.
If a wild turtle seems very agitated you should try to keep your distance, it can always bite you if you get to close.
And always try to handle them with care, If you properly handle a turtle there is no chance that you will get bittern, so avoid placing your hand anywhere close to its mouth.
Related Questions
Do turtle have teeth? No, turtles don’t have teeth, when they eat they simply bite small chunks that they swallow directly.
Are turtles dangerous? No, in general turtle are very peaceful, they only attack if they are provoked.
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