To most people, turtles are quite some curious creatures. They can stay underwater for hours without having to come out for air, but they also spend a lot of time basking in the sun. And during the winter they stay for months under frozen water.  So it’s quite common to ask yourself, how do turtles breathe, where do they store their air, and do they have lungs?  I also asked myself the same questions and decided to do some research to find out the answer.

Do turtles have lungs? Yes, turtles have two lungs in which they store air. The air usually reaches the lungs through the nose, and under special conditions, through the cloaca.

So turtles have two lungs, and like most animals, they breathe through their nose. But what about the cloaca, what is it and why do turtles breathe through it? And how do they manage to stay underwater for entire months without having to get out for air?

In the rest of the article, I will answer those questions. But first, let’s start with a closer look at how they breathe because this is also quite different from what you might expect.

How Turtles Breathe

The main way a turtle breaths it’s through its nose, all turtles have two small holes on their face that act as any normal nose would, when it comes to breathing, and of course they have two lungs where the air is transported. Until now there is nothing different in the way a turtle is breathing than the way you and I are breathing, they inhale air into their lungs and then they exhale it, but the way things work on the inside is completely different.

When you inhale air you can observe that your chest becomes smaller and when you exhale it becomes bigger, this happens because you have flexible ribs, turtles on the other hand have a shell that is not flexible at all. Since turtles don’t have this flexibility they have no use for the lung and muscle setup that we and most mammals have. Instead, turtles have muscles that pull the body outwards, towards the openings of the shell, to allow it to inhale, and more muscles to squish the turtle’s guts against its lungs to make it exhale.

Now let’s move to the cloaca

What Is the Cloaca?

As you can see in the picture above the cloaca is basically the turtle’s butt. This is the place from where turtles urinate, defecate and lay eggs. And also one of the places from where they breathe.

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 gathers all the oxygen from it, it will expel the water out and then it will start over. Due to the way things are arranged on the inside of the turtle this process is less exhausting than normal breathing.

Even if using the cloaca is less exhausting for the turtle, in normal circumstances a turtle won’t be able to survive for long periods of time using only the cloaca.

Here is a short video that shows how cloacal breathing works:

Some turtle species like the Olive ridley sea turtle can stay almost 10 hours submerged underwater, and the air that they get through the cloaca is essential for that. Not all turtles that use their cloaca for breathing are able to achieve such long periods underwater, but they are able to spend a lot more time than they would have without the cloaca.

Depending on their natural habitat different turtle species are able to get more air through their cloaca than other species, and this is to be expected. Sea turtles use it all the time since some of them spend their entire life without leaving the water. Aquatic turtles on the other hand still spend a fair amount of time on land as well. And land turtles that don’t spend any time underwater have little to no use for the breathing abilities of the cloaca.

But the cloaca is not only there to provide turtles with some extra air when they are swimming, without a cloaca most turtles wouldn’t be able to survive the winter.

How Turtles Manage to Survive for Months in a Row Without Breathing

When winter comes, turtles aren’t able to find any food to survive and as a result, they must take a break until it gets warmer. During this break, they will usually try to find a safe place where they can sleep. This kind of sleep is known as hibernation.

Hibernation is a state in which some mammals and reptiles will enter during cold periods. When they are in this state, they will reduce their metabolic rate, which means that they will use less energy, they won’t require any food or water, and they will sleep the whole time.

That is the basic explanation of what hibernation means. While this explanation covers the basic facts it doesn’t explain how it actually happens, and it doesn’t cover the different things that only certain species can do.

Unlike most animals that hibernate, turtles are reptiles. And this means that they are cold-blooded animals. Cold-blooded animals are not able to generate body heat and they rely on the surrounding temperature to heat their body. So turtles will observe very easily subtle changes in the temperature.

When the weather starts to get cold the metabolism of a turtle will automatically start to slow down. And as a result, their hearts will start to slow down, along with all other processes that happen in their bodies, including breathing.

In general, the heart of a turtle beats between 40 and 45 times per minute, when they hibernate they will slow down to around 10 beats per minute. This should give you an idea of how much they slow down during hibernation.

As a result of this slow down they will need considerably less oxygen, sometimes due to unfortunate situations turtles don’t have access to oxygen at all, but because they are hibernating they are able to live without oxygen for up to 5 months. They can also survive for 5 to 8 months without any food or water. The amount of time they can do those things varies from species to species, the numbers that I gave you are just some averages.

So turtles won’t use as much oxygen as they would normally do. But even so, their lungs are not able to hold up oxygen for three months, even if they don’t use as much oxygen.

This is where the cloaca comes into play. As I’ve said the cloaca is basically a 100% passive way of breathing. Ant the small amount of oxygen that it generates is enough to keep the turtle alive for the duration of the winter.

Conclusion

So turtles do have lungs. And they function in the same way yours and mines function. But what is completely different is the way they are able to breathe.

I hope this article answered all the questions that you had about turtle lungs. If you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask them in the comment section below. I will do my best to answer them as soon as possible.

Hello,

If you enjoy the content that we create, please consider saying a "Thank You!" by leaving a tip.

Every little bit can help us tremendously in continuing to create quality content that helps turtle and tortoise owners around the world.

We really appreciate the kindness and support that you show us!