Why do turtles cross the road before,during and after heavy rains?

Answer 1

I assume because it is nice and moist and they can drink from small puddles as they travel in search of new feeding grounds along the creek they inhabit and to keep their bodies nice and moist so they don't get too dry but I would rather see a student in herpetology answer this one.

Edit: The creek where I live has so many winds and bends that I can go two different compass directions to get to the same creek, though the distance is much greater on one of those compass directions. It's the absolute truth. I can head east for about two miles, or go north about a half mile. Perhaps by cutting across land the turtle cuts his travel down significantly, but again I would like to see a reptile and amphibian expert tackle this...

Answer 2

Turtles will often cross large amounts of land in search of new water. In human dominated landscapes, this inevitably means crossing roads.

Also, many species of turtle will overwinter in higher (drier) grounds. When the spring rains come, this may be an indicator for them to return to lower, wetter areas. Again, they are not intentionally crossing the road, it is just in the way of where they are going.

Answer 3

i've never seen that and never heard of it. however, i just want to say that i hope that you continue to see turtles crossing roads and on your dirt paths and in your ponds, since the frog population is down by approximately one half. why is that?

frogs, so important because they eat insects, especially those that damage crops (that's why mexicans deliberately put frogs into irrigation channels close to the crops, and that's why eating frog's legs in mexico is cheap and delicious--there are so many of them), are on a decline.

i live in the midwest. i am a 50ish person. i used to see salamanders in every pond or small lake or creek that i went to as a kid, and now i see hardly any. i do not hear frogs croaking in the middle of the night when i am camping in great numbers like i had 30 years ago. this is not a good thing. not.

back in the 50s, some brilliant doctor/scientist learned that it was easier to use frogs to determine human pregnancy than rabbits. i.e., if the urine of a woman who is pregnant is injected into a frog, it will immediately lay eggs.

so a specific type of frog was distributed all over the world for pregnancy tests. it is actually only one species of frog. i suppose that it was so abundant in the 50s that it was easy to catch.

it turns out that that particular species of frog naturally lives with a fungus which has a symbiotic relationship going on with that frog, but not with other frogs. the fungus spread in the wild, infecting and killing off native frogs.

that's why the frog populations are down by about one half of what they were in the 1950s. we are lucky that the same thing has not YET happened to turtles. turtles are just as important as frogs: every species of every animal great or small has its only highly specialized niche in the vast food chain that supports all life on this planet.

my guess is that turtles chase water. but why they'd cross the road BEFORE a storm has me scratching my head.

Answer 4

i might. on the comparable time making specific i do no longer reason a controversy with different autos nevertheless. The turtle is basically attempting to circulate to the place ever turtles circulate. i will gladly help it in the time of. tremendously for the reason that some human beings will intentionally purpose and hit animals on the line.

Answer 5

To lay eggs in the dirt?

Answer 6

to get to the other side....sorry i just had to say that....but i never actually noticed that turtles did that...