Snoring is a sound that occurs during sleep when the airway narrows, causing vibrations in the throat. While snoring is most commonly associated with humans, many animals snore as well, including dogs, cats, horses, and even elephants. However, when it comes to turtles, the answer to whether they snore or not is not straightforward.
When turtles breathe, air flows through their respiratory tract and causes the tissues within their system to vibrate. This vibration produces a gentle wheezing noise that can be observed when turtles are sleeping.
So, turtles do snore. But their snoring is somewhat different from that of humans and other animals, and that is because a turtle’s lungs don’t work in the same way.
How Turtles Snore
The main way a turtle breathes it’s through its nose, all turtles have too 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 set-up 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.
Just like our lungs expand and contract all the time, so do the muscles of the turtle move all the time in order to allow the turtle to breath. Even when sleeping.
Snoring is caused by things such as the tongue, mouth, throat or airways in the nose vibrating when breathing. It happens because these parts of the body relax and narrow when sleeping.
Turtles, like all other animals, relaxes their body when sleeping, and this can cause certain parts of the body to vibrate and produce sounds that we associate with snoring.
What to Do if Your Turtle Snores Very Loud
Normally, a turtle’s snore is very quiet, in most cases you need to get very close to hear it. The only exception to this is with bigger turtles, which can be louder while snoring.
So, it’s not normal for turtles to be loud while snoring. If your turtle snores loudly, you should go as soon as possible to the vet, as this is probably a sign of a respiratory infection.
Despite their hardy exterior, turtles are sensible to a lot of things, like the quality of the water, temperature, etc. And they can get sick quite easily. And when they do get sick, at the start it is almost impossible to tell, most visible signs only appear when things start to get bad. So in general, if you notice something strange going on with our turtle, you should go to the vet immediately.
One more thing that I would like to add regarding going to the veterinary, is that you need to make sure that you go to one that is either specialized in exotic animals. Since not all vets are specialized in every type of animal. So make sure that you do some research before going, otherwise you might just waste time and money.
Do Turtles Snore Underwater?
One thing that differentiates turtles from most animals is the fact that they can sleep underwater. In fact, they are one of the very few animals that can sleep both on land and underwater. But what about snoring? Do turtles also snore underwater?
No, turtles don’t snore underwater. While underwater, turtle are basically holding their breath, so there is very little air circulation going on. Turtles might let some CO2 out of their body while sleeping, but they’re definitely not taking any air through their nose.
But while turtles don’t take any air through their nose while underwater, they still get some through their butt.
How Turtles Breath Underwater
At the back end of a turtle you will find its tail, and right under it, you will see a small hole, that hole is the cloaca, and while it functions like most back ends do, it can do something extra.
The cloaca works similarly 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.
Under normal circumstances, the amount of oxygen gathered by the cloaca is almost insignificant, but when turtles sleep their heart rate is reduced, as well as their overall body activity, which means that they don’t need as much oxygen in order to function properly. So the air from the cloaca is able to keep the turtle submerged for a few extra hours.
But at some point the cloaca won’t be able to keep up with the oxygen needs. And if that happens and the turtle is exhausted and wants to sleep some more, it will simply swim to the surface to fill its lungs with oxygen that it will go back underwater to sleep.
If you would like an in-depth look at how the cloaca functions, you can check out my article: Do Turtles Have Gills? (How Turtles Breathe Underwater), where I cover in more detail how it extracts oxygen from the water and what other functions it serves.
Do Turtles Snore While They are Hibernating?
While hibernating turtles mostly rely on their cloaca for oxygen, since most of them prefer to hibernate underwater.
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 on how much they slow down during hibernation.
As a result of this slow down, they will need considerably less oxygen, and this gives the cloaca a real opportunity to shine. While the turtle is sleeping, the cloaca is able to provide enough oxygen to keep the turtle underwater for 3 or 4 hours, but when the turtle is hibernating the cloaca can provide oxygen for months. Most turtles have to hibernate for about 3 months each year, but there have been cases when they had to do it for 4 or 5 months, and during this time the cloaca managed to provide enough oxygen for the turtle to survive.
So, turtles don’t snore while hibernating.
Final Thoughts
While turtles might not breathe as most animals do, they still snore in the same way. Unless they are sleeping underwater, in which case they won’t snore at all.
I hope this article answered all of your questions about turtles and how they snore. If you have any other questions regarding turtles, feel free to leave them in the comment section, my colleagues and I regularly check the comment section and answer all the questions that we can find.
Related Questions
Can sea turtles drown? Yes, if sea turtles stay too long underwater, they can drown. But this only happens if they get caught by a net or something similar, otherwise there is no reason for a sea turtle to drown.
Do land turtles hibernate? Yes, some land turtles hibernate as well. Hibernating is not exclusive to land, sea, or aquatic turtles. It all depends on the environment that they live in, and if they choose to migrate or to stay.
Do turtles feel cold? Yes, turtles can feel cold. Turtles are cold-blooded, meaning that they don’t generate their own body heat, and they rely on the environmental heat to maintain their body temperature. And they have to be able to feel cold and heat to be able to choose a good spot to bask.
Do turtles have to hibernate? No, turtles hibernate only out of necessity. Hibernation serves no other purpose aside from keeping them alive during the winter. If there were no winter, turtles wouldn’t have to hibernate at all.
How long do turtles hibernate for ? Turtles don’t have a set amount of time that they plan to hibernate, instead they go to hibernate when the weather gets too cold for them, and they get out of hibernation when the weather gets warmer.
How long can a turtle stay underwater ? It depends on the turtle, most sea turtles will be able to go for at least 5 hours without breathing, most aquatic turtles should be able to stay underwater for at least 20–30 minutes, land turtles on the other hand are not very good at staying underwater so 1 minute is the average you can expect them to be able to stay underwater. Here is a list of average times a turtle can spend underwater:
- Box turtle – 1 – 2 minutes
- Desert tortoise – 1 – 2 minutes
- Snapping turtle – 20 – 30 minutes
- Red-eared slider – 20 – 30 minutes
- Map turtle – 20 – 30 minutes
- Green sea turtle – 7 – 10 hours
- Leatherback sea turtle – 7 – 10 hours
- Kemp’s Ridley – 7 – 10 hours
- Olive Ridley – 7 – 10 hours
Do turtles breathe when they hibernate ? Yes, they do. But not through their noses like they normally do, instead they use the cloaca that is a gill-like structure that allows them to gather small quantities of oxygen when they are underwater.
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