Do Turtles Poop Out of Their Mouths? With Video

Turtles can do a lot of amazing and strange things, and one of them is breathing through their butts. But can they also poop out of their mouths?

Can turtles poop out of their mouths? No, turtles can’t poop out of their mouths, but they are able to breathe through their butts.

So turtles can’t poop out of their mouths, but instead, they can breathe through their butts, and this is possible due to the cloaca. So let’s see what this cloaca is.

What Is the Cloaca

The cloaca is a small opening at the base of the tail. This orifice has many roles like:

• Breathing
• Urinating
• Defecating
• Laying eggs
• Reproduction

Here is a picture of how the cloaca positions inside of the body:

Photo by Bstoren on Wikipedia

And here are two links that show the cloaca in real life:

Link 1

Link 2

For turtles, the cloaca consists of the Urodeum, the central part of the cloaca that receives urine from the ureter, Proctodeum, the back ectodermal part of an alimentary canal, and the Coprodeum.

The cloaca can be found in other animals as well, they are not exclusive to turtles. Most birds have a cloaca, some fishes, and a few mammals. The cloaca can be a little different for other animals, but those that have it will generally use it for the same purpose, with the exception of breathing, not too many animals that have a cloaca use it for breathing.

Now let’s take a closer look at each function of the cloaca and see how it’s involved.

Excretions: This part is quite simple, the cloaca acts like the anus and urethra that can be found on humans and most mammals. The only difference is that instead of two dedicated openings for each of them, the turtles use only one opening.

Reproduction and egg-laying: The cloaca is also used for reproduction, and for egg-laying. I suppose those things are preety self explanatory, but let me add a video that will show you a turtle that is laying its eggs: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyiwCNDsdyM

Breathing: And finally breathing. 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. 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, but during hibernation, the cloaca is able to provide air for at least 3 or 4 months.

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

Cocluison

I hope this article answered all your questions about how turtles poop. But in case you have any more questions left, you can always leave them in the comment section and I will answer them as soon as possible.

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