Smelling

Tom

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Tortoises have a good sense of smell. I don't know how well it compares to a bloodhound...
 

Yvonne G

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I've told this story before, but it answers your question on what a good sense of smell a tortoise has:

I used to have to get up at zero dark thirty to get ready to be at work by 6a. That meant I was administering to the tortoises' needs in the dark. So I'm standing in the Manouria area, dishing out the food and cleaning out the waterer when I get the sense of something behind me. I turned and looked just in time to see the largest girl (about 65lbs) with her neck stretched out towards my leg and her mouth wide open. Good thing for me that they move so slowly.

She had smelled the food being put out, and she was in the shed, about 20' away from me, and there are vinyl strips sealing off the doorway.

For those of you who don't know the Manouria species, they walk slow, they think slow, they move slow. So she was coming at my leg in slow motion. In all the time I had them here none of them every were able to figure out that I was not the food. They would walk right over the food pile to get to me and try to eat me. They are the dinosaur of the tortoise world.
 

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