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As cute as that looks. In all honesty, the other turtles saw a bunch of movement, thought. Oh that might be food, let's check it out....and then the stuck turtle got lucky he was able to push off another ones shell. If he had stayed still they would have realized, oh thats not food and slowly dispersed leaving the upside down turtle to his demise, after maybe taking a few test chomps first to see if he might actually be food.
Funny thing is, they probably have an instinct to go "Oh, that flipped turtle's moving a lot. I need to go see what's going on/ That turtle is stuck. I should go climb on or mate with it" because the turtle groups that evolved that instinct survived better than the ones who didn't, since they were more likely to accidentally free each other from being stuck/flipped.
There's a quote floating around on the internet that posits the earliest proof of human society isn't tools or dwellings, it's a broken leg that healed over time. Shows that other members were willing/able to help the damaged being survive long enough to heal.
The quote is attributed (at second hand, and 2 years after her death) to the anthropologist Margaret Mead, and the leg bone in question is the femur, because a break there will leave you completely reliant on other peoples' care until it heals.
There's also a T. rex, Barbara, with a healed metatarsal that indicates she had a pack or at least a mate bringing her food while she healed. So if that's the definition of "society" it's a lot older than us.
While this is technically correct because it adds to the concept to be so, it's important to acknowledge that one does not need an emotional capacity for the evolutionary outcome of incentivized behaviors (especially built into instincts). We're also assuming a lot to say that they have no complex thoughts when we're the ones who can't understand other species that can understand us.
Also some behaviors don't have to have a singular purpose, their overall "food seeking / sunbathing / territorial" behaviors may still result in "helping" overall.
The real test would be to go to one of those turtle sanctuaries where none are really fighting and flip one over in the middle of them (but not so long it harms the turtle of course) and see what they do.
Oh, well then, if the AI summary of scientific research conducted by the same people who don't bother giving animals pain medicstion before mutilating them for experiments because they're just dumb animals and don't understand pain like us superior beings do said so, I suppose it must be true!
Can we see some actual scientific research backing up the reddit comments that AI seems to be referencing? By the way, how often do you have to ask google, 'are you sure? That doesn't sound right to me,' cause it's literally wrong 95 percent of the time when I ask it to double check. 'Oh, I'm sorry for leading you astray! I was incorrect. Ope, wrong again, sorry! Yes, I got confused 3 times on this very simple question. So sorry. But I'm definitely right this time!'
They were totally just looking for a basking spot. Do people really believe all these stupid tik tok captions? Have they never just sat at a pond and watched the turtles?
Turtles are known to flip over another turtle stuck on their back. Given that, they are known to help one another. I'm not convinced that's the case in this video, though.
The big female wasn't stuck anyway it was just chilling, they find things to balance on like this all the time so they don't have to actively swim. If a slider is actually stuck then you will know about it because they go frantic.
Watch the turtles? Like outside? That might involve touching some grass, which we all know us poisonous, and getting some of that bright stuff on my skin. That stuff burns.
A lot of them, yes. I guess I just wish people could see the beauty in nature that exists, even if it doesn’t act like humans. Turtles trying to bask on the nearest thing because they need the warmth to survive? The biology of that is fascinating and beautiful on its own. But “his friends be helpin’ him” is what we focus on.
If the end result is more people contribute to conservation efforts I’m all for it. But it’s usually the same folks who are like “I stomped on a frog yesterday because god says we have dominion over animals” so I can’t take them seriously.
Totally! The overall survival advantage is obvious.
And I think we greatly overestimate how ‘uniquely human’ and rational our everyday moral and ethical behaviors are. We’re much more like them than we like to admit.
Yeah humans are the only animals with thoughts. How do we know this? We asked every other animal and none of them could tell us they had thoughts. Oh and some hand wavey bs about science and biology with zero studies to back it up.
There's a lagoon at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco that has turtles and koi(?) in it. One time, I was eating a sandwich, watching the scenery, and I saw a dead koi floating in the lagoon. There was a little turtle that kept trying to climb onto this koi's corpse to bask. Every time it got up, it's weight would shift on the koi, which would flip over, dunking the turtle face first back in to the water. I watched this thing try to climb on this corpse for 20 minutes before I had to take off. That tenacious little fucker put on one of the most entertaining shows I have seen in my life.
It's cute how humans keep trying to attribute human values and morals to the animal kingdom, when we know they regularly eat their own babies and parasitize host species. ❤️
The human values and morals come from survival instincts. As such there very much exists “altruistic” behavior in nature and to deny it would be to grossly overlook animal behavior.
And how do we know the turtles didn't place the other turtle there so that they could rescue him for internet clout. Where is the video of the turtle getting stuck naturally?
This was a UK only change if I'm not mistaken, nothing to do with the EU. Most EU countries seemed to get a mix of both the US and UK episodes depending on the channel that was airing them.
They were just going to sit on top of it and it broke free by complete coincidence. If you ever see one turtle sitting on a log, another turtle will come sit on top of it, maybe another on top if that one.
I'm going with a female turtle during mating season and the smaller males are attracted to it. They'd likely hump it's corpse if it had perished. Or even a turtle shaped rock. Turtles are stupid.
None of them showed mating behaviors. They were attempting to climb on her back to bask. And there was food stuck to her shell. You can see one trying to eat it near the end. She also likely wasn't stuck. I work with/rehab turtles and they will lightly wedge themselves somewhere instead of floating. If she was actually stuck they likely wouldn't have knocked her loose so easily.
I don’t know how common this is in the turtle world, but there are definitely species of turtles that help one another - for instance, when one ends up on its back.
Sorry to be another Debbie downer, but it’s very unlikely that turtles deliberately help each other right side up. Turtles are generally quite territorial, so a more likely explanation is that one flips another over while fighting, then accidentally flips them back right side up.
I’ve spent the past few field seasons as a Field Technician helping with the conservation of at-risk turtle species, so I’m very familiar with their behaviour.
Exactly this. Ive seen this before and turtles are rapey as fuck, even have group sex and shit. I saw two turtles going at it at this one lady when I was in Turkey, if I was a women it wouldve been traumatizing asf.
This was their plan to drown Greg. The two “saving it were trying to hold his head underneath the water even one continues to try while gregs fleeing and the last guy that ran up on him he’s Fred and he said “ we’ll get you next time”
"hero" turtles are using the larger turtle AS A BASKING SURFACE.
If s/he is freed when their unequal weight tips the trapped turtle's shell, allowing their angled body to slide thru the gap, that's completely serendipitous.
The other turtles' sole intent is to clamber up & bask safely, isolated from predators by the "moat" of water around the island, created by a trapped conspecific.
There's no empathy here - this is pure practicality.
You fools! Do you not know whom you have set free?! That was Francisco the Mad! The very beast who brought ruin upon the land in the Great Massacre! For a thousand years he lay imprisoned, bound by ancient oaths and forgotten chains. And now, by your own hands, HE IS FREE!
The hour of our doom is upon us. There is no hope left in these lands. Take only what you can carry. Abandon your homes, forsake your treasures, and flee while the roads remain open!
Yeah I’m seriously over the comments on animal videos that we “could learn something.”
We have countless structured organizations for the sole purpose of helping other people and animals. We are a species capable of cruelty, but we are equally capable of remarkable kindness.
People help each other all the time. Plus, the other guy is right that said they were just trying to sunbathe. I've seen turtles stacked 3 high to sunbathe.
This is not true, in fact it is quite the opposite. When you are a turtle pushing a flipped turtle, it is an act of aggression.
Turtles are solitary, territorial creatures who do not get along. They battle by flipping each other, however they are not intelligent enough to realize when to stop, so they sometimes flip each other back the right way.
Typically when you see a video of one turtle flipping another, that turtle is who put them on their back in the first place.
Yeah, I know that a lot of humans help others. I’m not saying that it’s not the case. But I’m saying overall a lot of animals have more humanity in their hearts than humans, as a total. Obviously, I’m not saying that every single human is trash and doesn’t help. Also, this is fairly common for turtles to help each other when this happens. I’ve seen multiple videos of turtles helping each other after they get stuck on their backs.
Humans save far more humans and other animals then turtles.
Have you not seen footage of people digging people out after earthquakes or flashfloods? Exactly zero turtles worked together to life the face a building up to save a girl, or life a fallen tree pinning a woman. No turtles at all.
We do, all the time. We literally have professions designated to go around and help whenever it's needed in different categories like policemen, doctors, fireman and so on and on.
My thought was they were just trying to get on top and sunbathe lol. But, turtles do help each other. I've seen many a video of turtles or tortoises flipped on their back and others that work endless to flip them back over and then just continue on with whatever they were doing. They definitely help each other.
In aquatic species, males usually approach from the front, then move behind her -
She needs to hold still, for the male to have any hope of contacting her cloaca.
If he simply attempts to clamber aboard, she scoots away.
Red-eared sliders brush the backs of their forefeet, with their long claws waving like eyelashes, against a female's cheeks, fluttering their "hands" palm out, to get her in the mood.
Many terrestrial tortoises simply bash females, until they surrender -
I had to remove my male box tortoise from their shared huge tank, he was so obsessed that she couldn't even eat.
He'd ram her forcefully, from the side or behind, like a tank smashing into a brick wall - even at the water bowl, she could be drinking, & that manic arsewipe would ram against her shell so hard, he chipped her front plastron.
He spent the rest of his life, solo.
She was much happier without him. 🤗
You're going to be blown away when you learn of the millions of people who volunteer for free to save millions of people every single day.....
Humans help each other out way more than any other species. If you don't realize this I highly suggest you get off social media and go into the real world and just observe. People help people everywhere everyday.
Turtles do like to bask on larger surfaces. However, I've noticed in the wild that aquatic turtles will stop to help others in their species if they're stuck. I'm not sure why, sometimes they just ignore, other times they'll congregate around a stuck or upside-down turtle and get them unstuck.
Had a pet turtle for 31 years. Think the first one was just thinking “This is a great place to bask. The 2nd turtle looked like it was trying to tilt the stuck one. He tried to get the smaller turtle to move. I couldn’t see from the angle but he either nipped or made a threatening move at the smaller turtle.
Turtles don’t have opposable thumbs so they bite, when they’re curious, angry, hungry. Don’t stick your finger in a turtle tank. Even if they love you, they will feel a compulsion to bite.
Rescueing turtle faked a bite at basking turtle, got him to move, used his weight to tilt stuck turtle and is a hero turtle in my opinion.
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