Occasionally when I interact with my turtles, they will make a hissing sound at me. The strange thing is that they don’t always do that, and there is nothing in particular that I am doing to make them hiss. So, to find out why turtles hiss I decided to do some research, and share it with everybody that has the same question. Here is what I found out.
Why do turtles hiss? The hissing sound appears when turtles retract in their shell. Unlike other animals that hiss when they want to intimidate somebody, turtles have no control over when the hissing sound is produced.
The hissing sound that turtles produce is quite different from the other hissing animal sounds like snakes, cats, owls, etc. The hissing sound of a turtle, while it has its purposes is mostly involuntary. So let’s take a closer look at how the sound is produced and what it’s purpose is.
How the Turtle Hissing Sound Is Produced
The first unexpected and major thing that I found during my research is that turtles don’t have any vocal cords. So, unlike other animals that use their vocal cords to produce a hissing sound, turtles don’t. The hissing sound is actually produced by the air that is being expelled from their lungs. As strange as it sounds, it actually makes sense. But for it to make sense you have to look at when turtles make the hissing sound.
Turtles will only make the hissing sound when they quickly retract to their shells. When they get scared for any reason, like a strange sound, or something suddenly appearing before them, etc. turtles will rush into their shells and hide. When they retract into their shells they need to make room for their head and limbs. And they do this by eliminating excess air from their lungs. When the air from the lungs is quickly eliminated it will involuntarily produce a hissing sound.
Here is a quick video of a turtle hissing while it’s retracted in its shell:
You can think of the turtle’s lungs as a balloon that is filled with air. If you let small quantities of air get out over a long period of time, it will do so without producing too much sound. But if you start to suddenly squeeze it and force the air out it will produce a powerful noise, that can sometimes be comparable to a hiss.
So this is why you will only hear the hissing sound when a turtle is retracted in its shell.
Now that we know how turtles hiss let’s see what is the purpose of this sound.
The Purpose of the Hissing Sound
Taking into consideration the way the sound is produced we definitely have to say that the first purpose of the hiss is to make room for the turtle in its shell and prevent the lungs from being damaged. If the air wouldn’t be expelled the turtle will be hitting its lungs every time it would quickly retract in its shell, and that can happen quite a few times a day.
Besides preventing the turtle from hurting itself, the hiss has another purpose as well. And that is to intimidate any potential attacker. While the hiss itself is not very scary, it can help the turtle intimidate another animal that is attacking.
When turtles defend themselves they will usually stay retracted in their shells and when they see an opening they will quickly get out and try to bite, after that they will quickly retract to their shells. When they retreat to their shells they will also produce a hiss.
Here is a video of a turtle that is trying to defend itself from a person who is filming it, in this video you can see how the turtle will try to quickly bite, and then it will retract to its shell and hiss to further intimidate the “attacker”:
So while the hiss by itself is not very effective, combined with the way turtles defend themselves, it can actually be quite efficient.
What Means If My Turtle Hisses When I Touch It?
If your turtle is always hissing when you interact with it, it means that your turtle is scared. There are a lot of reasons why a turtle might get scared, they are not the bravest creatures in the world.
If you just got your turtle, then it’s perfectly normal for them to get scared easily, they just got in a new environment with things that it has never seen before, noises that it didn’t hear until now, and now it has people that interact with it. So it will need a little time to get accustomed to all those new things. After a while, it will probably stop getting scared so easily and will make the hissing sound less often.
Overall when a turtle hisses it means it got scared and had to quickly retract into its shell. And as I said there are a lot of things that can scare a turtle. There is no solution to stop the hissing, except for being gentler around your turtle and trying not to scare them.
If you want more tips on how to properly interact with your turtle you can always check out the Care Guides Section of this site where you will find hundreds of articles that will to better interact and care for your turtle.
Related Questions
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. If you want to know how a turtle bite feels, what you should do if you get bitten, and more importantly how not to get bitten by your turtle, you should check out this article: Do Turtles Bite? How Hard Do They Bite and What to Do
Can turtles recognize their owners? Turtles can recognize you and they will understand that you play an important part in their lives, but they will not feel any familiarity towards you like dogs or cats would. Overall turtles recognize their owners but not in a way you would expect. You can always read more about this in my article: Can Turtles Recognize Their Owners?
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
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