Do Turtles Yawn? (Should You Be Worried?)

Over the years I’ve seen my turtle do a lot of strange little things, but one that got my attention was when for no reason it was opening its mouth for a few seconds and then closing it back after a few seconds. At first, I ignored it, but then I got worried, so I started to do some research. And to my relief, I found out that my turtle was just yawning.

Most turtles yawn in order to stretch their muscles or to bring more oxygen into the blood and move more carbon dioxide out of the blood. Yawning in turtles is in most cases an involuntary reflex, but it can sometimes be done on purpose.

As we all know yawning is mostly a harmless thing, albeit a little contagious. But when a turtle yawn excessively, it can be a sign that something is wrong with its health, or with its environment. So let’s take a look at why turtles yawn and see when you should worry and when not.

Why Turtles Yawn

Turtles Yawn to Get More Oxygen

The main purpose of yawning is to get more oxygen in the body, more exactly into the lungs, which then move the oxygen into the blood. Turtles, humans, and every animal in the world yawn for this exact reason.

The most common time you will see a turtle yawn is right after it wakes up from its sleep, when it’s tired, or when it’s resting.

After turtles wake up, the amount of oxygen in their blood is low since they can’t breathe that well while sleeping. So one of the first things that they will do is yawn, which will help them get their oxygen levels back to normal.

When turtles are tired, but they also to keep themselves awake, they will yawn in order to increase the oxygen level in their blood, so that they can have more energy.

But yawning does more than increase the oxygen level in the blood.

Turtles Yawn to Get Rid of Carbon Dioxide

When turtles breathe, they do two things, first, they inhale oxygen, and then they exhale carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is what’s left of the oxygen after the body of the turtle uses everything it needed from it.

Yawning is in a way a super breath, it does everything a normal breath does, but better.

When we yawn, we do it in two steps, first, we inhale air, then we exhale it. When we exhale, we get rid of carbon dioxide. Even if it’s harder to see turtles do the exact same thing. But due to their inflexible bodies, there aren’t as many movements, so you can’t really say what is happening unless you already know.

Turtles Yawn to Stretch Their Muscles

Speaking of their inflexible bodies. Turtles have a lot of muscles underneath their shells, and most of those muscles are also used for breathing. So when a turtle needs to stretch their muscles there is a good chance that it will also yawn, since for them yawning is more or less a form of stretching.

Turtles Yawn Due to Respiratory Illnesses

All of the things that we discussed until now are completely normal and you can see a turtle yawning for those reasons a few times per day. If your turtle is yawning consistently throughout the day, there is a good chance that it’s suffering from a respiratory disease.

But yawning is not the only sign of a respiratory illness, some other common signs are:

Wheezing
Excess mucus in the mouth
Mucus coming out of the eyes or nose
A lack of appetite

The best way to see if your turtle suffers from any health problem is to go to the vet. And this is the only way to get proper treatment. If you suspect that your turtle has a health problem you should go to the vet as soon as possible.

When turtles suffer from a respiratory illness, they will naturally have a hard time breathing, so they will yawn excessively in order to get more air in their lungs. But unlike the previous cases that we discussed, a turtle with health problems will do this very often. How often depends on the severity of the illness, if it’s severe, they might do this once every 10 minutes, if the problem is minor they might do it only once an hour.

If you suspect that your turtle is yawning excessively you should go with your turtle and see a vet.

Can Turtles Yawn Underwater?

Turtles can’t yawn underwater since they can’t process the oxygen in the water using their mouth. Turtles can do something similar to yawning while underwater, but it’s not the same thing.

When you see a turtle doing movements similar to yawning underwater it could be doing one of two things: it coil be either drinking water, or it could release some oxygen to increase its buoyancy.

Even if turtles can yawn underwater to get more oxygen in their lungs, they can do something else to breathe underwater. But that something else happens at the other end, their butt, more precisely the cloaca.

A cloaca is a small orifice that can usually be found at the back end of an animal, and it has many different roles depending on the species of the animal.

You might have heard at some point something like: turtles are able to breathe through their butts. And as weird as it sounds that is kind of true, the cloaca is positioned near the turtle tail and it can be considered the butt of the turtle. But the cloaca acts differently than how you would normally expect a “back end” to work, let’s take for example another animal that we all know, the dog. The purpose of a dog’s anus is to execrate, and that is it, it’s not involved in any other biological processes. But the cloaca is used for more than that.

The cloaca has 4 important roles: execration, urination, reproduction, and breathing. Turtles use only one orifice for those things and that is the cloaca.

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, mainly because they don’t have any reason to do it.

The cloaca of a turtle absorbs small quantities of water, sucks the oxygen out of it then release it back, and the whole process repeats itself.

The quantity of oxygen gained this way is quite small, but under certain circumstances, for example, while hibernating, it can allow a turtle to stay for months underwater, without needing to get out for air.

But hibernation is a completely different subject that I already covered in this article: Do Turtles Hibernate? (with Videos), so if you want to know more about this you can check the article out.

Final Thoughts

So, yes, turtles can yawn. In fact, they most likely do it every day, sometimes because they are tired, sometimes because they need a good stretch, and sometimes because they can’t breathe properly.

I hope this article answered all of your questions about turtles and yawning. But, in case there is anything else that you would like to know, feel free to leave a comment in the section below, I will do my best to answer it as soon as possible.