General Care Discussion :: Will my turtle remember his friend?

[HelpMeHesdying]

I have 2 Res turtle's, they're 5 years old and have been together since birth. They haven't ever fought but now I have to sperate them into 2 different tanks cause our tank is too small for both. I will put them back together when I get a new tank, but will they remember each other??

[steve]

Good question, I think to some extent they might remember or at least differentiate other RES. However, it probably doesn't mean much if one is aggressive or very competitive.

[Kansasslider]

I rember faces not names so maybe? Ya know? That's a great question, I would like to think so but then again they are turtles not dogs.

[theartbook35]

Okay, so, my RES and my common map/RES hybrid have lived together their entire lives. They share a 55 gallon, but once I get into a larger apartment next year, I will buy a second 55 gallon and separate them. They aren't aggressive with each other, but feeding them has become a pain, since they both dive for the same piece of food and end up accidentally nipping each other. A couple of months ago, Hurricane was aiming for a strawberry, and Typhoon got in the way, so Hurricane missed the berry and latched onto Typhoon's lower jaw, likely thinking it was the berry she had, and took a chunk out of Ty's chin. Ty is healed and fine now, you'd never know it happened, but we were treating this injury in the best way we could, and it was stressful (Long story short, all of my money was spent on moving to our new apt., and I was unemployed, no money for a vet). Don't put yourself in this kind of situation, it's not fair to your turtles. Not that I have housed Hurricane and Typhoon together maliciously, there's just been too many accidents for me to be okay with keeping them together forever.

I think turtles likely remember each other, mainly by smell and maybe even appearance. Mine react to me differently than they do to my mother. We let all three of ours walk around the apartment together, a couple times out of the year, and our large turtle Sadie, always reacts the same ways to Hurricane and Typhoon. For some reason she can't go near Hurricane, but she's fine with being near Typhoon. Whatever.