Swimming Indian Star tortoises in the Prague Zoo

[Gokhlaye]

So a few months ago I visited the Prague Zoo for the "Czech turtle keepers day". We visited the Indian start tortoise enclosure as you can see in the photos.

They were moved to the Gharial house a few months before this. Quickly after moving in, the caretakers saw them swimming around in the water area. At first they were very afraid, but after a few days they noticed that the tortoises go into the water just because they feel like it, swim around for 20-30 minutes and return back to the land area. It is very hard to see, but on one of the pictures where there are two Gharials from the back, one tortoise is actually crawling through it's open snout.

Of course I want to add that this is not the way to keep tortoises and these have the luxury to be pretty much monitored 24/7.

I also added a photo of the list of animals that live in the enclosure.

 

[RickyGoldsmith]

Quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. There's always something new to observe and know.

 

[Yvonne G]

Looks like a pretty nice exhibit. The water is so clean! I guess a well fed ghariel wouldn't be interested in sampling his room mates.

 

[KarenSoCal]

I guess a tortoise is like eating a jawbreaker...you have to be really hungry for the effort to be worth it.

 

[TammyJ]

Wow. Those gharials are awesome. Very interesting.

 

[Maro2Bear]

Darn. Ive been to Prague a few times for month long work trips. Never visited the zoo! Darn darn darn.

 

[Gokhlaye]

Looks like a pretty nice exhibit. The water is so clean! I guess a well fed ghariel wouldn't be interested in sampling his room mates.

Gharials are fish eaters, that's why their snouts are so... well weird 😅. There is plenty turtles in the exhibit too. This is a picture from years ago. They just bask on top of the Gharials cause that's what turtles do I guess.

Darn. Ive been to Prague a few times for month long work trips. Never visited the zoo! Darn darn darn.

Oh that's a mistake, the Prague zoo is one of the best zoos in Europe. The enclosures are huge and beautifully naturalistic and they do a lot of conservation work too. Plus they have some nice tortoises, especially the giant ones.

 

[Sarah2020]

Fascinating to see....I like the swimming with confidence in open water (I thought it would sink like a stone but maybe air in lungs give boyancy) and catching a ride on the alligator or croc back.

 

[OliveW]

Very cool to see, thanks for sharing. I had never even heard of Gharials. Love the pics of the tortoises swimming, that's something I thought I'd never see.

 

[William Lee Kohler]

So funny. Someone just claimed on one of the Hingeback forums that forest Hingebacks were the only tortoises that could(or did?)swim. I held my tongue.