General Care Discussion :: odd turtle behavior

[curiousmonkey]

hi i am new to turtles but i have had froot loops for about a year now. i believe that it is a he although i truely have no clue. froot loops ( named by my son) is a res and he lives alone. the whole family adores him and play with him often. recently we have noticed an odd behavior. when we place our finger or and small object he comes to the glass he "waves" at us. his arms stretch straight out in front and he moves his "fingers" very quickly. does anyone know about this? has anyone seen this before? or do we truely have a crazy turtle? :^) is this a teritory issue or possibly "girlfriend" issue? if it is girlfriend related what can i do? thanks

[hhisc383]

sounds like he's trying to mate

[tini]

sounds like he's trying to mate

yep sounds like it to me too

[sonyj]

This is normal turtle behavior. The mating dance includes waving the front claws in the females face. This doesn't mean he wants to mate though. Many solitary turtles will do this to rocks or other objects in their tank. It may mean that he is having territorial/aggression issues as well.

If he does it when you put your hand/finger in the tank, it may be his way of saying that he feels that his space/territory is being invaded or threatened. Even if it isn't mating or territorial, he may just be doing it because it is a very natural turtle behavior.

So no worries, and there is nothing you should do except make sure that his environment is correctly setup (10 gallons of tank per inch of turtle with proper lighting/basking area and maximum water to insure he has plenty of swimming room). Please do not go out and buy another turtle thinking he needs a "girlfriend", this could lead to worse problems than helping the current one.

[birdlady]

My older turtle does this when she is laying on her basking rock. She looks like she is swatting at flies or something. Thought she was nuts as there is nothing there to swat at.
Upon looking at the situation, she usually only seems to swat when Sheldon is looking like he/she wants the basking spot as well. Either Bob is saying come on up or get the heck away.
Now they can both use the rock at the same time as there is tons of room for both of them together. (btw, both my ttls are over 6" in lenght).

[blindmisfits]

On the Subject of Territory Would it be a bad idea to put my Younger turtles in with my older one, he did the wavy thing at them when i introduced them but is he going ot do anything about it

[sonyj]

How small are the younger ones and how large are the older ones (shell length from tip to tip not including curve)? Hoe large is their habitat/tank?

If there is a big difference it is recommended not to keep them together. There have been some posts on larger turtles injuring and even killing the smaller ones.