Turtles move too slowly to migrate south. Instead, they go down for the winter.
Welcome to this week's edition of Something Wild. I'm Rosemary Conroy for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
Looking at my bookshelf, I've noticed that I have a lot of books about winter - which is understandable, because winter is longer and, well, more complicated than other seasons.
It's certainly tough if you're a wild creature living outside- like, what do you do if you're a turtle? You're not fast enough to get to warmer climates in time, yet, surprisingly, most of them do go south. But instead of miles, we're talking inches- straight down.
That's right. Most of our common turtle species bury themselves in the mud at the bottom of ponds to get through the winter. Now, the trick is that turtles breathe air, yet somehow they survive in what is essentially an airless environment for six months. To do this, they slow their metabolisms way, way down, until the turtle is barely functioning. These hardly reptiles endure the pond freezing over, being covered in a suffocating blanket of snow, and having all the dying plants use up most of the pond's oxygen. Nevertheless, the turtles somehow can absorb just enough oxygen through their skin to make it to spring, safe and sound.
Scientists don't completely understand how these be-shelled beings can physiologically manage all the complications of their anaerobic winter abodes, but the important thing is, of course, that the turtles do. They have, after all, been getting through winter this way for millions of years. In fact, some biologists think that this ability to bear up under such extreme environments for such long periods of time is why these reptiles have been able to endure throughout the ages basically unchanged.
Turtles have survived cataclysmic events that killed off many other species, including the dinosaurs. Cold weather? For our tough turtles, that's simply a snap.
Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, NHPR and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. For Something Wild, I'm Rosemary Conroy.
