Communication

Do Turtles communicate to each other?

Cows moo. Ducks quack. Dogs bark. Turtles? Well, most people would say turtles don’t make any noise, but that’s not true. Recent evidence suggests that at least 47 turtle species make some form of sound to communicate messages ranging from social standings to reproductive signals.

Researchers started monitoring leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) nests in Oaxaca, Mexico for sounds on day 51 — the point at which the turtles’ ears should be developed enough to hear sound.The researchers immediately began detecting sound, recording more than 300 different noises overall.

The researchers classified the sounds in four categories, including chirps, grunts, and “complex hybrid tones.” They found that the last sound, the most complex of them all, was only recorded in nests with just eggs, not eggs and hatchlings, suggesting that the noise is used to coordinate hatching times. Being able to coordinate hatching times is an important survival technique, because, for helpless little leatherbacks, there is strength in numbers. If they all hatch together, there is a much better chance that more of them will make it across the beach and into the water.

Do turtles communicate to other species?

Turtles can certainly be said to communicate their emotions through a type of body language that pet turtle owners may come to know well. When threatened, most specimens will retract their heads, legs and tails into their shells to protect themselves. But some turtles, once comfortable with people, will not retract into their shells when handled and may even actively investigate things that make them curious. The more of a turtle's extremities you can see, the less threatened the animal feels.