![]() ![]() If you see a turtle in the road, safely stop, move them to the other side of the road in the direction they are facing, and carry on. This is why, as humans, it is our responsibility to be on the lookout for turtles on the road. They only understand that their muscles hurt and they need to warm up. ![]() Turtles don’t understand what cars are and why they’re dangerous. Cars have only been around for a little over a hundred. Turtles have been around for hundreds of millions of years. This is what is going through a turtle’s mind when it is lying in the middle of the road. Its muscles start to relax and soon the soreness and burning sensation are gone. Instead of competing, what better basking spot is there than a black-top road? The black top soaks up the sun’s warmth and helps to warm up a cold turtle from both its belly and its back. If you’ve ever seen what seems like an inordinate number of turtles on a log, you know how prime basking spots are highly sought after and can be a cause for competition. They need their bodies to warm up to get their metabolism back up to speed and flush the lactic acid buildup in their muscles. This is partially why turtles can be seen basking in the sun on warm spring days. Come springtime, turtles are a mess of sore and burning muscles once they emerge from the mud. This doesn’t neutralize all of it, however. Much like how we eat chalky, calcium-rich antacid tablets when we have heartburn, turtles can use their own built-in calcium stores via their shells to neutralize some of the lactic acid. Turtles’ shells are composed of two things: scutes, which coat the outsides of the shell, and bone, which composes the structure of the shell. So how do turtles endure it for weeks at a time? If too much lactic acid builds up, it can become painful or even dangerous. This burning is caused by a buildup of lactic acid in the muscles. When someone is running or doing an intense workout, they may notice their muscles start to burn. This process is called lactic acid fermentation. When our body can no longer take up enough oxygen to maintain our activity level, it starts undergoing a process to convert glucose (simple sugar) into energy without the use of oxygen. It’s what happens when we exercise intensely and become short of breath. When the oxygen in a frozen water body gets used up, they can switch over to a type of breathing that does not require oxygen at all called anaerobic respiration. Eventually, the oxygen in a frozen pond can get used up.īrilliantly, some of our native Indiana turtles, including painted turtles and snapping turtles, evolved a way to get around this. Because most of the oxygen that is dissolved in the pond water gets there through direct contact between the water and the atmosphere, no water-to-air contact for extended periods can create problems for animals. To Report a Dead or Injured Sea Turtle Call 1-80ĭownloadable resources linked below are in the PDF format.In Indiana, ice can remain on a pond’s surface for weeks at a time.Turtles are found in a wide variety of habitats in South Carolina including the ocean, freshwater lakes and rivers, dry sandhills, and forests. In some turtles growth rings can be seen on the scutes (scales) covering the shell. The turtle’s shell is developed from its ribs, and grows with the turtle over its lifetime. Turtles are unique reptiles, having boney or cartilaginous shells covering their bodies. ![]()
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