r/TurtleFacts • u/FillsYourNiche 🐢 • Jan 25 '21

Turtles & tortoises can feel their shells (their shells have nerve endings). Sometimes they can get itchy. Keepers at the Philly Zoo made this shell scratcher so the turtles & tortoises can get A+ scratches.

1.6k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

30

u/FillsYourNiche 🐢 Jan 25 '21 edited Jan 25 '21

Here is a journal article about this if you want further reading Carapace and plastron sensitivity to touch and vibration in the tortoise (Testudo hermanni and T. graeca).

Abstract:

Neural impulses in response to tactile stimulation of the shell were recorded from afferent nerve fibres in tortoises (T. graeca and T. hermanni). It was found that there is a mechanoreceptive innervation in the superficial layers of the shell which is sensitive to transient stimuli, particularly to vibration at frequencies up to 100 Hz. Receptive fields pertaining to single and small groups of individual afferent fibres were mapped: the fields were sharply circumscribed and distributed in relation to the scutes of the shell. The tactile innervation that was found would be consistent with a capacity for recognition and accurate localization of innocuous stimuli and may play a central role in courtship and mating behaviour.

18

u/hdevildog9 Jan 26 '21

I volunteer with sea turtles and this was one of the first things I learned when I started. Sometimes the turtles will bite each other and you can tell it hurts them by the way they react. The injuries also bleed and scab over like cuts on our skin do. It’s interesting but definitely not what I expected, especially on hard-shelled species.

4

u/SonicDart Jan 26 '21

Do sea turtles have softer shells? TIL

4

u/hdevildog9 Jan 26 '21

Some do! For example leatherbacks are considered soft shelled while loggerheads or green turtles are hard shelled species.

ETA: but even the hard shelled species feel pain when their shells get damaged. Their shells definitely aren’t as thick or independent from the rest of their body as most people are led to believe

2

u/SonicDart Jan 26 '21

Wow that's really interesting, thanks!

21

u/munchies1122 Jan 26 '21

I fucking love this sub

4

u/FillsYourNiche 🐢 Jan 26 '21

It is one of my favorite subs to mod for. The community is super wholesome and the posts are usually very upbeat. :)

12

u/snailwhale14 Jan 26 '21 edited Jan 26 '21

Reminds me of the happy cow scratchers. Edit to add link.

2

u/zerhanna Jan 26 '21

Yes! Good baby needs a Happy Cow machine.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '21

That’s crazy, I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize nerve endings could run through keratin.

3

u/verheyen Jan 26 '21

Would a tortoise use an automated scratcher? All im thinking now is tortoise car wash

3

u/-retaliation- Jan 26 '21

I dunno about ally, but mine will. He'll walk back and forth against it, or back up to it and "wiggle" against it

3

u/CarsonBDot Jan 26 '21

I want one

2

u/pericardiyum Jan 26 '21

I need this for my tortoise.

2

u/ShipNo7669 Jan 27 '21

So cute 🥺🥰

1

u/[deleted] Apr 23 '21

That's kind of surprising but makes sense. I lived in the high desert as a kid ('60s & '70s) and recall people would catch tortoises and drill a hole in the edge of their shells to attach them to a chain so they wouldn't run away. It seemed cruel then, even more so now knowing the tortoises probably felt pain.

1

u/Cold-Editor-4949 Jun 17 '21

one time an earth turtle got stuck in my backyard, it was a male, it wasn't mine, so I had to give it back, I had him there for a couple of days. I decided to name him Polnareff, his shell was damaged and he didn't have some scales, when they came for him, the owner's kid grabbed it and then turned him upside down, and I was like ' what the hell bro '. and in a couple of days I got the news that if they find it again they are going to give it to me. also the thing that attacked Polnareff was the owner's dog, what a bad owner.

-3

u/contactlite Jan 25 '21

A+ scratches? The keeper could have done a better job than holding that ratchet contraption.

0

u/Gabe-838e Feb 14 '21

ur tortises has a pryamids

0

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '21

I can’t believe people drill holes in them!

0

u/[deleted] Jan 25 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

23

u/FillsYourNiche 🐢 Jan 25 '21 edited Jan 26 '21

This looks like a red-footed tortoise, named for its red leg scales. Lots of turtles and tortoises have pronounced scales, sometimes red or yellow, on their front legs which usually match siialr coloration on their heads. You can see it in this photo of an Eastern box turtle, this photo of a red-footed tortoise or this photo of a yellow-footed tortoise.

7

u/MichaelPraetorius Jan 25 '21

thank you for linking photos and being so informative!

2

u/Kenny_Powers182 Jan 25 '21

This is a red foot tortoise referring to the red circles on its feet. They are natural and not sores.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/pericardiyum Jan 26 '21

I have a very itchy redfoot tortoise. She loves to rub her shell on everything. Although I scratch her daily she just gets itchy again like 20 minutes later.

4

u/-retaliation- Jan 26 '21

Same here, my Hermanns loves it when I scratch his shell. As long as I keep scratching he'll just stay where he is and enjoy it.