Seeing your pet turtle asleep at night, with its feet put up, is adorable but you’d also understandably wonder why the animals do this.
This article looks into why turtles put their feet up at night
Table of Contents
Why do turtles put their feet up at night?
This legs in the air at night pose seems pretty casual, turtles who do this seem very calm and relaxed. This pose is intriguing to humans but seems commonplace, normal, and natural to turtles.
Here is why your pet is doing this:
Thermoregulation:
Turtles are cold-blooded, they are ectothermic. This means that they rely on their environment to regulate their body temperature.
These animals will bask under a heat source, either the sun or their basking lamp, to keep warm.
If they aren’t getting enough warmth through their shells then the animals will extend their limbs so that the heat from the sun, or the light from the basking lamp, reaches more of the turtle’s skin.
The temperature during the nighttime is generally cooler than the temperature of the daytime so you may not see your pet turtle extend its legs and put its feet up to gain heat during the day, but, you may see them doing this at night when it’s colder and they need the heat from their basking lamp more.
What to do:
This isn’t something to worry about and isn’t something that you’d need to do anything about either, this is normal behavior in turtles.
Some turtles will do this and some turtles won’t.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other turtle/tortoise related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: What Kills Pet Turtles?, Do Turtles Eat Their Babies?, Male Turtle Biting Female Neck, Why Is My Turtle Attacking My Other Turtle?, Why Is My Turtle Biting The Other One?, Turtle Biting Other Turtles Head Off, Why Does My Turtle Try To Bite Me?, Do Male Turtles Eat The Eggs, Turtle Scratching Shell On Toothbrush,