How do they survive cold temperatures? Most turtles go underwater in the winter. Turtles usually swim to the bottom of the pond or river under the frozen surface. Turtles winter in the water because the temperature is much more stable and usually warmer than the temperature of the air. Although turtles are cold blooded animals, they cannot survive an extended period of time in temperatures below freezing.
The water offers a safe place where the temperature will never reach a temperature below freezing. Now you are probably wondering how turtles are able to breathe underwater. However, when a turtle spends the winter underwater, they go through a process called brumation.
During brumation, the turtle is able to extract oxygen from the water through their blood vessels. The official term for this type of oxygen collection is called cloacal respiration. While blood vessels intake significantly less oxygen compared to the lungs, it is still enough to help the turtle survive months under water. This is because a turtle that is underwater in brumation has a much slower metabolism. Their heart rate also slows down tremendously.
Your turtle will stop using energy to hunt and focus more on conserving the fat already in its body. Turtles do this because it's important for their gastrointestinal tract to be clear before hibernation. Young turtles typically do not need to hibernate for their first few years of life. Most wild turtles die during their first winter because hatchlings have such a hard time surviving hibernation.
Underweight turtles are at a high risk. While hibernating, turtles use their existing body weight for sustenance. Underweight turtles may not have enough in their body to sustain themselves.
Even the turtle — a reptile — faces this particular season of the year anticipated by drowsiness and a lack of appetite. In nature, it takes care of everything by itself. Given this, with the arrival of autumn and early cold spells, it is crucial to adjust the ambient temperature properly so as to not endanger the life of our testudines friends.
So in addition to protection, their shell and actually their bones too will help maintain their body chemistry while they're living like this. CS : That's kind of neat, too, because they don't have such a heavy shell and they don't have all this calcium and carbonates and things in there to do it.
CS : One of the ideas is: the reason you won't find the soft-shell turtles in a stagnant pond, let's say, with the snapper, is that they can't do this low-oxygen thing that builds up the lactic acid. When they're shut down, they still have to actuallly have oxygen in the water so this doesn't happen to them. One of the neatest things is there is another kind of turtle, the little painted turtle, they have an even tougher time. They spend the winter on land, in their nest. CS : Yeah, just the babies.
They hatch out but they don't come out of the ground in the fall like the snappers do. They'll stay in their nest and have to deal with all of that kind of stuff, and emerge in the spring. A turtle under the ice. Photo: Richard Due. Creative COmmons, some rights reserved. NCPR provides this essential service.
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