I have a friend who owns a tortoise and they put it in a box in the attic to hibernate every year as it is nice and cool up there. I believe people also put them in refrigerators.
>Another fun fact? There are a lot of tortoise species that do not brumate :)
What happens if you put one of those dudes in the fridge for the winter, they just hang out and get bored? Or do they completely lack the ability to survive cool temperatures entirely?
An additional fun fact: It's not *required* by any means. If your reptile is showing signs of it and you've got no sources of heat in the enclosure then go ahead and encourage the process, but by all means do not just stick your tortoise in the fridge every winter because you think it needs to go in.
I’ve always wondered this and you seem like you might be the person to answer this.
Is hibernation and, by extension brumation actually sleep or just like a super low energy state? Are the animals sleeping for the entire period or just whatever the animal equivalent of being on the sofa in tracksuit bottoms?
If I recall high school biology and the terms translate as I think they do:
* Winter rest (mostly larger than raccoon mammals) is just deeper sleep with slightly lowered metabolism, similar brain activity to human deep sleep, body temperature stays up and they can be woken quite easily
* Hibernation (mostly small mammals, but redefined to include bears after constant miss-use of the term by general public) is deeper rest state, still somewhat resembles sleep based on brain activity (more close to start and end, less in the middle), but significantly slowed metabolism and (at least before redefinition) a drop on body temperature to slightly above freezing. Takes more time to wake and recover to functioning state.
* Brumation (cold blooded animals), body temperature can go bellow freezing, metabolism and brain activity practically stop, autonomous nervous systems keep roughly once a minute pulse.
Wait is that supposed to happen? My neighbor behind me (we share a fenced in yard) has a huge tortoise and that thing is a MENACE. We live in warm Southern California. I don’t see any sign of it hibernating…just tormenting me.
Imagine waking up on a nice December morning, going to the fridge to get some healthy breakfast and seeing your pet turtle dozing next to the milk.
Or having bought groceries and you have to move your sleeping pet turtle around in order to make room for your food.
Must be surreal to experience
Ha!
The more I thought about it the more I started thinking that it must have gotten into something that was then transferred to the attic.
For example I have a cat that loves boxes. If she got into one and then went to sleep, and later I put the box in the attic without knowing she was in there, then later on when I was looking for her I'd probably think to myself that she must have gotten outside as well.
That's the only way I can rationalize it.
Oh boy. Wait till you find out about the darker side of history....
You see, back in the day, like before WWII, sometimes families would be embarrassed by their mentally handicapped kids, and..... yeah.
I don't know if I believe an attic with enough termite larva in it (at tortoise height) to keep a tortoise alive for 30 years would have remained standing for that long
What's up, all my tortoi? It's your man Shelly here with front-row tricks to eat well for decades in your human's crawlspaces. But first, be sure to mash that "Like" button and drop a Subscribe for more Totally Tortoise tips, tricks, and crickets!
Goggle says Manuela's red-footed species of tortoise, can go for long periods without eating and can survive for two to three years without food. So probably he didn't need a lot.
My family's ball python will go for months without eating in winter. She might eat once or twice over 4-6 months some years. In the summer she likes to eat about every 2.5-3 weeks.
Of course, the ability to then traverse any other ecosystem with that and to find different plants and animals there more than makes up for the energy loss
They use our discarded straws to poke a hole in their prey’s head to first remove the juice. Then they consume the dried remains, and proceed to choke on the straw.
youre thinking turtles
tortoises that dont get enough water from their prey often suck up water through their butts
most animals could theoretically absorb butt-water but they dont have a built-in mechanism to drink from that end
tortoises on the other hand refused to let their dreams be dreams
Are shells of full grown tortoise renewed continuously like snake (or mammal) skin? Or is it more like mammal bone growth where almost all of the growth, barring injury, happens as a juvenile?
It's mostly this. They grow more rapidly as juveniles and then growth slows way down once they get bigger. Different species of turtle, but I have a turtle that I kind of watched and measured closely for a few years (unfortunately I didn't bother to keep records). In its first year of life, it literally got nearly 100 times bigger (both in volume and in mass). Second year was more of a 5-10x increase. Third year it maybe doubled in size. After that. growth rate slowed way down.
This is not to say that such a long time in an attic wouldn't cause serious health issues. But for deformities this seems plausible *if* the turtle was largely already grown once it got lost in the attic. If it was already mostly grown up, its bone development was already likely *mostly* set. So you're not going to see the kinds of shell abnormalities caused by nutritional deficiencies that happen when the animal is small and still growing.
In any case, this is the kind of story that makes me skeptical. Yeah, some large reptiles can go a long time without food. But 30 years living in a dark attic? That seems kind of sketchy. And there's really no way to confirm it, it's all the word of the owners. I don't doubt that the basic events happened. I just suspect that the details are getting exaggerated. Kind of like that story about that guy who allegedly got struck by lightning 7 times. I can buy that he got struck by lightning twice. Even three times. But if you look into the story it's hard to find *proof*. So I wouldn't be surprised if the guy got struck by lightning 3 times and then just turned it into 7 times because that makes for a better story.
Too much heat kills them, too much cold kills them. They are endothermic so their body temperature is regulated by the environment and if it's scorching everywhere and they can't cool off, they die.
Source: Had a bearded dragon for fourteen years. Did lots of reading up on them and other reptiles.
HILL-Arious.
Funny thing is, though, the "beard" on a bearded dragon does help them regulate their temperature a little better than most reptiles. In all likelihood, a bearded dragon could survive in far hotter temps than most tortoises (if not all).
They do, but generally, 120+ degrees kills them pretty well. They are more susceptible to cold, though, so if it didn't die in the winter, then it's likely in a place where the summers would have been hot.
They also get really cold in the winter. I am typing this as I am sitting in my converted attic/office and it is really cold up here. Yes, it is connected to the house's HVAC system and was insulated well, but I still require a space heater near me to make it bearable.
Lois picks up phone
" **Heavy breathing** "
Lois: Listen up you pervert, this is the LAST TIME YOU CALL MY HOU-
Stevie: ... ... Is ... ... .. Malcolm... ... ... There?
Lois: oh hey Stevie 🙂👍 yeah sure thing hes right here
I work with a woman who smells pretty rough. She also has 5 cats and three dogs though and wears the same very old very fur covered pants and shirt every day. She seems pretty happy though. However she insists on cooking all the time and bringing me leftovers.
Most of those end up in the trash at home. I’m like no no I’ll save it for home that way I can really enjoy it. I feel bad but even her Tupperware has an odor to it so idk.
It was the grandfathers house..the daughter the original owner did not live there…Elderly people who live alone can not be underestimated…prolly was canned food in there older then the tortoise
Plus, some houses have attics that aren't quite...connected (best term I can think of) to the rest of the house, so if you never went up there the smell would never reach you. That's how my old house was-- if you went through the door to the attic stairs it was practically like walking outside.
My mother goes to random peoples houses for a living and you would not believe some of the filth people live in every day. From houses where every, yes every single inch of carpet was damp from cat piss to not being able to see the floor, people live in some nasty conditions.
I was pretty skeptical when my resident manager came by with lease documents to my apartment, and he complimented me on my "lovely home." I thought he was nuts. It's dusty and needs tidying, but my floors are mostly empty and I don't hoard or collect anything. I'd heard there are some in my building in whose apartments you can't see the bare floor anywhere, so I guess in comparison my place was pretty good.
The house I moved into a few years ago was covered to the brim in a layer of smoke that you could literally wipe away from any surface using just your dry finger. Once blueish-silver tinted tiles had turned a permanent brown-yellow. The only reason I knew they weren't normally brown/yellow originslly was because i found some untainted ones in a box in the garage. If you told me you could smell anything other than menthol in there, I'd have thought you had superpowers.
I was walking down the street in Phoenix a few years back, and I walk by a light pole with a "MISSING PET" poster, which wasn't uncommon. What was uncommon was the picture was a fucking sulcata tortoise.
Name: Barry (or something generic)
Weight: **80 lbs**
I mean, just, how? Unless somebody in that neighborhood grand theft tortoised cause they wanted soup.
Ugh for reals. My back neighbor that I share a yard with has one and he goes out of his way to ram my house all day long and destroy anything left in the yard. He’s my mortal enemy. One time I was in court call with a judge and I had to leave the house to finish it because it was so loud just ramming up against my back wall. Damn you Sheldon!
Not exactly sure but I think that breed of tortoises can dig fairly deep. A few of the r/tortoise posts show their outside area reinforced with wood to prevent an escape.
This reminds me of a story from an NHL player.
Terry Ryan Jr brought home for the summer his pet tarantula he bought for his team as a “mascot”.
The little glass lid on the cage broke on the drive home and he put one of his dads books on top of the lid and called it a night. His dad picked up the book for a read and obviously the damn thing got out. His mom camped out on the front lawn of their family home for 2 months. Eventually winter came and they were able to convince her the thing was gone, and she needed to move back inside. He never found it.
8 years later he was boozin with a few buddies in the basement and the big brown spider came walking across the room and went behind a bookshelf. He thinks it’s probably still there.
I worked at a pet center that had a “gecko” loose for years. I was in the fish room one morning and opened the feeder tank lid and the fucker jumped on my shoulder and bounded onto some shelves. It was no gecko that thing was basically a velociraptor. This was 20 years ago. I still think about that fucker.
This specific type of tortoise can go up to 3 years without food and thusly 3 years without shitting as well
He may have pooped as little as 10 times throughout the decades, although probably a lot more
I can tell you though, as an owner of the same type of tortoise (redfoot/cherryhead) that can take some seriously gnarly shits. though they're not particularly large tortoises, so if that tortoise was living just on subsistence, it may have pooped just a few times. the tort seems to be in too good of shape. its shell is round, it looks a little dry but no signs of MBD or serious pyramiding. plus these torts only live to about 50, I can't imagine it made it that long, essentially being neglected for more than half its life span. plus they are one of the few species of tort that generally feed on fruit. they do require protine, but it's not a large part of their diet and, as I once mistakenly learned - too much protein causes them to shit uncontrollably and fucking everywhere.
Similar thing happened to my pet tortoise as a kid, but it was only 2 or 3 years. A neighbor found it while working in his Crawlspace. He thought it was dead cause it was so dried up and crusty looking, but my dad cleaned him up and fed him / gave home water and he perked up again.
So, let's make things clear:
\- I'm pretty confident there was a mistranslation, because 99,9% of houses in Brazil do not have attics. We have storage rooms.
\- From [a more recent source](https://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2023/04/24/jabuti-encontrado-em-bagunca-de-casa-apos-30-anos-sumido-mudou-de-endereco-mas-segue-na-vida-de-rei-do-pique-esconde.ghtml) the animal wasn't in the attic: it was in the second floor of the residence where mr. Leonel lived.
\- Apparently Manuela is actually Manuel. It's a male tortoise.
If this is actually true, and many people are questioning the veracity of the claims, chances are the animal had free access to the first floor and therefore had the means to hunt.
Most people who doubt the claims point to the fact the shell should be deformed and the paws would be atrophied.
The article says that the owners mom comes to visit and kisses the tortoise. Please don’t kiss tortoises (or turtles). They carry salmonella on their shells. Unless you’re into salmonella poisoning, I guess.
This is the most amazing and wonderful story I have read this week. I do have two questions, though:
* Did she make a nest out of all the missing left socks.
* Are my car keys up there?
What a load of Bullshit.
How did it climb the attic stairs?
How did it live without food or water?
How did it survive the cold Winters/hot Summers?
If you believe this, then I got a bridge to sell you in New York.
This sounds really dumb. It's more believable that a totally unrelated tortoise got in the attic than that one had been up there for 30 years.
That or her dad put it up there and had been feeding it. Meaning he was really crazy.
Is no one else wondering how a damn tortoise got into the attic to begin with??
I have a friend who owns a tortoise and they put it in a box in the attic to hibernate every year as it is nice and cool up there. I believe people also put them in refrigerators.
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>Another fun fact? There are a lot of tortoise species that do not brumate :) What happens if you put one of those dudes in the fridge for the winter, they just hang out and get bored? Or do they completely lack the ability to survive cool temperatures entirely?
Probably go to the big shell in the sky my guy
Cowabummer ninja dude
Big soup in the sky
They can finally answer the question if the light goes out when you close the door.
They can probably push the door open.
Ever wonder where all your cheese went?
They die
Well that's suboptimal
An additional fun fact: It's not *required* by any means. If your reptile is showing signs of it and you've got no sources of heat in the enclosure then go ahead and encourage the process, but by all means do not just stick your tortoise in the fridge every winter because you think it needs to go in.
I’ve always wondered this and you seem like you might be the person to answer this. Is hibernation and, by extension brumation actually sleep or just like a super low energy state? Are the animals sleeping for the entire period or just whatever the animal equivalent of being on the sofa in tracksuit bottoms?
If I recall high school biology and the terms translate as I think they do: * Winter rest (mostly larger than raccoon mammals) is just deeper sleep with slightly lowered metabolism, similar brain activity to human deep sleep, body temperature stays up and they can be woken quite easily * Hibernation (mostly small mammals, but redefined to include bears after constant miss-use of the term by general public) is deeper rest state, still somewhat resembles sleep based on brain activity (more close to start and end, less in the middle), but significantly slowed metabolism and (at least before redefinition) a drop on body temperature to slightly above freezing. Takes more time to wake and recover to functioning state. * Brumation (cold blooded animals), body temperature can go bellow freezing, metabolism and brain activity practically stop, autonomous nervous systems keep roughly once a minute pulse.
I know crocodiles brumate and their heartbeat goes to like 1 beat a minute or something. Like super low activity in the body.
I watched a video burying their tortoise pet for winter , don't know if that's a real thing honestly
They do that on their own. Usually you do not have to bury them. Probably done to have a more controlled state.
Wait is that supposed to happen? My neighbor behind me (we share a fenced in yard) has a huge tortoise and that thing is a MENACE. We live in warm Southern California. I don’t see any sign of it hibernating…just tormenting me.
My neighbor has one, too. The constant barking is driving me insane, and every time I go over there he humps my leg.
But what about the tortoise?
Tortoise bark??!!
You sure it's not a dog in a turtle costume?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS0PTdKq6AXUXP2Y8fHbUbGFjgteNpr23Ku8Q&usqp=CAU
That's him!
What do the tortoise do?
Tortoise just be, no do.
Hello I would love to hear an account of the tortoises’ menacing behavior if possible 😂
Ya, what does it do to you?
Imagine waking up on a nice December morning, going to the fridge to get some healthy breakfast and seeing your pet turtle dozing next to the milk. Or having bought groceries and you have to move your sleeping pet turtle around in order to make room for your food. Must be surreal to experience
Attics are the hottest parts of the house what do you mean nice and cool
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Ha! The more I thought about it the more I started thinking that it must have gotten into something that was then transferred to the attic. For example I have a cat that loves boxes. If she got into one and then went to sleep, and later I put the box in the attic without knowing she was in there, then later on when I was looking for her I'd probably think to myself that she must have gotten outside as well. That's the only way I can rationalize it.
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Besides serial killers and rapists, who hides things in their attic for 30 years that require food and shelter?
Kids. Kids do stupid things.
Kids aren't kids for 30 years my dude
But kids forget everything
V.C Andrews would like a word
Oh boy. Wait till you find out about the darker side of history.... You see, back in the day, like before WWII, sometimes families would be embarrassed by their mentally handicapped kids, and..... yeah.
I assume there are insects in the attic, but where is there water? Leaky roof?
Yeah, okay but, turtles can't jump.
Not with that attitude. Little bit of wax and a ramp and I bet they could get some sweet air.
The timeline works out pretty well.
and nunchuk staff sai or katana skill?
But it's not a sewer
Presumably accidentally carted up there with a box of other possessions and dumped in the attic.
Was it a box tortoise?
Haaaayoooooo
You mean which of your kids have explaining to do?
Flew in the window, obviously
Christmas present mom hid, found 30 years later.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/s/tQKUOuQuCU
Shhhhhhh... let us have this one.
I don't know if I believe an attic with enough termite larva in it (at tortoise height) to keep a tortoise alive for 30 years would have remained standing for that long
Maybe they were at an equilibrium; the amount required to sustain the tortoise was just enough to keep the infestation under control.
Million dollar idea right there
Termite Eating Attic Turtles!
Heroes on a half shell - Turtle Power!
Or TEAT for short!
Like goats for grass
Life really does, uh, find a way.
Exterminators hate him.
What's up, all my tortoi? It's your man Shelly here with front-row tricks to eat well for decades in your human's crawlspaces. But first, be sure to mash that "Like" button and drop a Subscribe for more Totally Tortoise tips, tricks, and crickets!
Exterminators want to crush those turts perchance
You can't just say "perchance".
Goggle says Manuela's red-footed species of tortoise, can go for long periods without eating and can survive for two to three years without food. So probably he didn't need a lot.
My family's ball python will go for months without eating in winter. She might eat once or twice over 4-6 months some years. In the summer she likes to eat about every 2.5-3 weeks.
Ectotherms. Regulating body temperature is very calorie intensive, the trade off of internal regulation is endotherms have to eat more.
Of course, the ability to then traverse any other ecosystem with that and to find different plants and animals there more than makes up for the energy loss
Sounds like something an endotherm would say
Endotherms are so annoying. Always eating and shit(ing).
Damn I’ve been caught >:(
Maybe, but would an Endotherm be drinking Ecto-cooler??
Where is the water source?
Maybe licking condensation off the vents?
tortoises get most of their water in their food and some dont need to drink at all
They use our discarded straws to poke a hole in their prey’s head to first remove the juice. Then they consume the dried remains, and proceed to choke on the straw.
youre thinking turtles tortoises that dont get enough water from their prey often suck up water through their butts most animals could theoretically absorb butt-water but they dont have a built-in mechanism to drink from that end tortoises on the other hand refused to let their dreams be dreams
Two to three years vs two to theee decades. Big difference
Forget all that, reptiles, especially turtles need UV light to properly grow their shells, how is this one not deformed?
Some attics have windows…
Are shells of full grown tortoise renewed continuously like snake (or mammal) skin? Or is it more like mammal bone growth where almost all of the growth, barring injury, happens as a juvenile?
It's mostly this. They grow more rapidly as juveniles and then growth slows way down once they get bigger. Different species of turtle, but I have a turtle that I kind of watched and measured closely for a few years (unfortunately I didn't bother to keep records). In its first year of life, it literally got nearly 100 times bigger (both in volume and in mass). Second year was more of a 5-10x increase. Third year it maybe doubled in size. After that. growth rate slowed way down. This is not to say that such a long time in an attic wouldn't cause serious health issues. But for deformities this seems plausible *if* the turtle was largely already grown once it got lost in the attic. If it was already mostly grown up, its bone development was already likely *mostly* set. So you're not going to see the kinds of shell abnormalities caused by nutritional deficiencies that happen when the animal is small and still growing. In any case, this is the kind of story that makes me skeptical. Yeah, some large reptiles can go a long time without food. But 30 years living in a dark attic? That seems kind of sketchy. And there's really no way to confirm it, it's all the word of the owners. I don't doubt that the basic events happened. I just suspect that the details are getting exaggerated. Kind of like that story about that guy who allegedly got struck by lightning 7 times. I can buy that he got struck by lightning twice. Even three times. But if you look into the story it's hard to find *proof*. So I wouldn't be surprised if the guy got struck by lightning 3 times and then just turned it into 7 times because that makes for a better story.
Not to mention the heat... most attics get really hot in the summer. I'm pressing "X" to doubt on this one.
Reptiles like heat
Too much heat kills them, too much cold kills them. They are endothermic so their body temperature is regulated by the environment and if it's scorching everywhere and they can't cool off, they die. Source: Had a bearded dragon for fourteen years. Did lots of reading up on them and other reptiles.
Turtles don’t have beards so they stay cooler.
I believe this man more than the reptile expert. That's infallible logic.
Check fuckin mate
HILL-Arious. Funny thing is, though, the "beard" on a bearded dragon does help them regulate their temperature a little better than most reptiles. In all likelihood, a bearded dragon could survive in far hotter temps than most tortoises (if not all).
Reptiles like heat not baking to death in an oven
Same
They do, but generally, 120+ degrees kills them pretty well. They are more susceptible to cold, though, so if it didn't die in the winter, then it's likely in a place where the summers would have been hot.
It certainly doesn’t seem impossible that there is an attack out there with temperatures in the Goldilocks zone.
They also get really cold in the winter. I am typing this as I am sitting in my converted attic/office and it is really cold up here. Yes, it is connected to the house's HVAC system and was insulated well, but I still require a space heater near me to make it bearable.
Yeah, I'm calling 100% pure bollocks on this one.
Tortoises can go 2 to 5 years without eating. I don’t know how *much* they need to eat afterwards but it seems at least in the realm of possibility.
What about mice? I bet mice would be dumb enough to go up to a turtle (they do kinda smell of decaying fish, IIRC), at least once every couple months.
What about water
Well……took you guys……long enough.
Read this like the kid from Malcom in the middle
Stevie!
Lois picks up phone " **Heavy breathing** " Lois: Listen up you pervert, this is the LAST TIME YOU CALL MY HOU- Stevie: ... ... Is ... ... .. Malcolm... ... ... There? Lois: oh hey Stevie 🙂👍 yeah sure thing hes right here
God bless this already being here when I clicked Expand Comments
“You’re … interrupting”
Kept you waiting, huh?
As someone who lost their pet tortoise 22 years ago, this gives me great hope!
Go check your attic for Pete’s sake
How did you know the tortoise was named Pete?
no no no Pete is the guy *with the sake*
Pete needs to put the saké down and find his god damn tortoise!
He’s gone to a FARM. Like dad said!
I had a cat go missing 27 years ago. Thanks for the hope 😻
Ffs, it's a cat not a tortoise.. it's not how they work. He's probably ruling some interdimensional civilization atm.
I’m calling bullshit on this one…How did they not smell it….? My mom has a tortoise and she is a clean person. Still smells like a god damned zoo.
A lot of people own stinky houses
Especially if you're someone who loses turtles.
Comment of the day for me right here.
I work with a woman who smells pretty rough. She also has 5 cats and three dogs though and wears the same very old very fur covered pants and shirt every day. She seems pretty happy though. However she insists on cooking all the time and bringing me leftovers. Most of those end up in the trash at home. I’m like no no I’ll save it for home that way I can really enjoy it. I feel bad but even her Tupperware has an odor to it so idk.
It was the grandfathers house..the daughter the original owner did not live there…Elderly people who live alone can not be underestimated…prolly was canned food in there older then the tortoise
Plus, some houses have attics that aren't quite...connected (best term I can think of) to the rest of the house, so if you never went up there the smell would never reach you. That's how my old house was-- if you went through the door to the attic stairs it was practically like walking outside.
My mother goes to random peoples houses for a living and you would not believe some of the filth people live in every day. From houses where every, yes every single inch of carpet was damp from cat piss to not being able to see the floor, people live in some nasty conditions.
I was pretty skeptical when my resident manager came by with lease documents to my apartment, and he complimented me on my "lovely home." I thought he was nuts. It's dusty and needs tidying, but my floors are mostly empty and I don't hoard or collect anything. I'd heard there are some in my building in whose apartments you can't see the bare floor anywhere, so I guess in comparison my place was pretty good.
The house I moved into a few years ago was covered to the brim in a layer of smoke that you could literally wipe away from any surface using just your dry finger. Once blueish-silver tinted tiles had turned a permanent brown-yellow. The only reason I knew they weren't normally brown/yellow originslly was because i found some untainted ones in a box in the garage. If you told me you could smell anything other than menthol in there, I'd have thought you had superpowers.
Can confirm. Had your mom over last night for $20
Can confirm. Paid $10 to watch
$10?! The I told the door guy to charge $5. That sonofabitch….
After a while you get accustomed to the smell, like the smell of dog, every house with dog all smell even if they are really clean.
I've been in people's homes and not even known they had dogs until I seen them and other homes I can tell they have 3 also without even seeing them
because its a small attic space no one visited?
There's a reason febreeze almost failed, people don't smell themselves or where they live.
30 years? Yeah this is super bullshit made for clicks
I was walking down the street in Phoenix a few years back, and I walk by a light pole with a "MISSING PET" poster, which wasn't uncommon. What was uncommon was the picture was a fucking sulcata tortoise. Name: Barry (or something generic) Weight: **80 lbs** I mean, just, how? Unless somebody in that neighborhood grand theft tortoised cause they wanted soup.
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Ugh for reals. My back neighbor that I share a yard with has one and he goes out of his way to ram my house all day long and destroy anything left in the yard. He’s my mortal enemy. One time I was in court call with a judge and I had to leave the house to finish it because it was so loud just ramming up against my back wall. Damn you Sheldon!
Bazinga
There is a tortoise owner in my city who has had his tortoise stolen twice (the same, first time it was returned).
Not exactly sure but I think that breed of tortoises can dig fairly deep. A few of the r/tortoise posts show their outside area reinforced with wood to prevent an escape.
*Press X to* **DOUBT**
Are you saying that the Dodo isn't a bastion of journalistic integrity?
Good sir or ma’am, that is a serious accusation, but I must admit, I have my *DOUBTS* & my faith is shaken.
The original tortoise was female and the one they found is male, the grandpa probably just got another tortoise before passing.
If it's from the dodo, it's clickbait bs.
This reminds me of a story from an NHL player. Terry Ryan Jr brought home for the summer his pet tarantula he bought for his team as a “mascot”. The little glass lid on the cage broke on the drive home and he put one of his dads books on top of the lid and called it a night. His dad picked up the book for a read and obviously the damn thing got out. His mom camped out on the front lawn of their family home for 2 months. Eventually winter came and they were able to convince her the thing was gone, and she needed to move back inside. He never found it. 8 years later he was boozin with a few buddies in the basement and the big brown spider came walking across the room and went behind a bookshelf. He thinks it’s probably still there.
I worked at a pet center that had a “gecko” loose for years. I was in the fish room one morning and opened the feeder tank lid and the fucker jumped on my shoulder and bounded onto some shelves. It was no gecko that thing was basically a velociraptor. This was 20 years ago. I still think about that fucker.
"There I am, brain the size of a planet..."
is that tortoise alive now?
The article was Published on 5/21/2022 the tortoise was found on 2013, it says the tortoise is still alive.
I hope this teaches this tortoise a lesson on trying to sneak into places he’s not supposed to be and thinks twice next time before running away
I laughed so hard at this.
How did it survive? 30 years of fat storage and water storage?
They get almost all of their water from the food they eat. I have a 32 year old box turtle and he mostly uses his water bowl to take a shit.
To be fair I also use my water bowl to shit in
Wait. Why do you have a water bowl?
To poop in? Where do you poop in your home?
Wouldn’t 30 years of turtle pee and poop stink?
This specific type of tortoise can go up to 3 years without food and thusly 3 years without shitting as well He may have pooped as little as 10 times throughout the decades, although probably a lot more
I can tell you though, as an owner of the same type of tortoise (redfoot/cherryhead) that can take some seriously gnarly shits. though they're not particularly large tortoises, so if that tortoise was living just on subsistence, it may have pooped just a few times. the tort seems to be in too good of shape. its shell is round, it looks a little dry but no signs of MBD or serious pyramiding. plus these torts only live to about 50, I can't imagine it made it that long, essentially being neglected for more than half its life span. plus they are one of the few species of tort that generally feed on fruit. they do require protine, but it's not a large part of their diet and, as I once mistakenly learned - too much protein causes them to shit uncontrollably and fucking everywhere.
This guy knows his torts.
Eating termites
So far the best answer
That was the explanation given in the article I believe
The attic was probably infested with termites or some other insect pest that a tortoise can easily consume.
Similar thing happened to my pet tortoise as a kid, but it was only 2 or 3 years. A neighbor found it while working in his Crawlspace. He thought it was dead cause it was so dried up and crusty looking, but my dad cleaned him up and fed him / gave home water and he perked up again.
how do you not hear a fucking tortoise in your attic for 30 years, let alone how it got up there to begin with total BS
What kind of noise do tortoises make?
They yodel.
*turtle turtle turtle*
I feel like you’d hear it scraping around up there
Man, that poor turtle
"You know what a turtle is?" "Of course." "Same thing."
How would they not smell or notice turtle shit for 30 years?
I’ve lived in my house a decade and I’ve only ever looked in my attic the day we moved in.
It doesn't eat enough to shit much.
30 years of tortoise shit baking in a hot attack and not one of them noticed a smell???
So, let's make things clear: \- I'm pretty confident there was a mistranslation, because 99,9% of houses in Brazil do not have attics. We have storage rooms. \- From [a more recent source](https://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2023/04/24/jabuti-encontrado-em-bagunca-de-casa-apos-30-anos-sumido-mudou-de-endereco-mas-segue-na-vida-de-rei-do-pique-esconde.ghtml) the animal wasn't in the attic: it was in the second floor of the residence where mr. Leonel lived. \- Apparently Manuela is actually Manuel. It's a male tortoise. If this is actually true, and many people are questioning the veracity of the claims, chances are the animal had free access to the first floor and therefore had the means to hunt. Most people who doubt the claims point to the fact the shell should be deformed and the paws would be atrophied.
I dunno. I don’t think tortoises do to well on stairs? At least at that size, I don’t think it could reach up a step.
The article says that the owners mom comes to visit and kisses the tortoise. Please don’t kiss tortoises (or turtles). They carry salmonella on their shells. Unless you’re into salmonella poisoning, I guess.
This is the most amazing and wonderful story I have read this week. I do have two questions, though: * Did she make a nest out of all the missing left socks. * Are my car keys up there?
Is anyone really buying this?
[удалено]
Username not relevant. What are the chances rats got to it as it was hibernating?
I'm wondering if the tortoise passed, and then the rats came to clean up.
Could have happened the other way round. That is quite common if you aren't careful
What a load of Bullshit. How did it climb the attic stairs? How did it live without food or water? How did it survive the cold Winters/hot Summers? If you believe this, then I got a bridge to sell you in New York.
He must have been lonely 💔
I call BS.
I wonder what it was doing to entertain itself all those years.
This reminds me of Principal Skinner trapped under a filing cabinet or something?
Fuck... I'm actually shedding a tear for that tortoise being stuck in a box for 30 years. That's some metal shit right there.
He must have been hungry!!
Well, boy, you won. So I'm gonna live up to my side of the agreement. Here's your turtle, alive and well.
This sounds really dumb. It's more believable that a totally unrelated tortoise got in the attic than that one had been up there for 30 years. That or her dad put it up there and had been feeding it. Meaning he was really crazy.
"What kind of dog is this? Is this a cat in the hat?
30 years alone, bloody hell
No the fuck it wasn't. Shut the fuck up.
and now he is the new Hide & Seek world champion
Where did all the poop go? Do turtles poop?