So here ya go Paul, a slightly humerous blog post dedicated to you and your interests in animal science, specifically the branch dealing with baby amphibious reptiles nervous systems.
As I stated before, animal science is not my area of knowledge...even though that major is my backup plan if the whole pre-med thing doesn't work out...I figure since I love animals, I'll do something with animals. But I'd probably do something with cattle or cats, neither of which share much in common with turtles.
Anyways, back to baby turtles brains and their cognitive patterns.
I once had a baby turtle. Once.
It's name was Bubbles. I have no clue whether it was a boy or a girl. It was way too small to be able to tell, I have tiny hands, and there he is in my palm. This is with a macro lens too. Bubbles was a tiny little thing.
From what I can tell it was a Slider Turtle, which are commonly found in warmer Texas rivers.
I "rescued" (that would be up to you to determine) it. Well, by rescue I mean found him one day while I was snorkeling in the Comal near the chute. That river is 60 degrees year round, which isn't exactly warm, and it was all alone and was having trouble swimming because its back flipper/foot thing was bitten off. So I took it home in an Ozarka Waterbottle (it could easily fit through the opening) and emptied it into a fishbowl on my desk.
He/she made a pretty good desktop companion. It loved to throw the pebbles around and would re-arrange them everyday into new cave-like hiding places. So I guess that was a cognitive pattern it had: instinct to hide from the blonde lady who cries over math. He seemed quite content living in that fishbowl, even though it was constantly swimming into the sides of it and was always ramming its head into the rocks. From that pattern I say that my hypothesis is that it had a cognitive disability commonly referred to as simple retardedness (that's my new word of the day since auto correct has never heard of it). Whenever I'd change the water every-other day and when I did that he/she got to play in the sink, which it seemed to thoroughly enjoy. Not that I actually know how to tell when a turtle is having a good time. I can't even tell that about myself, much less a turtle the size of a half dollar!
I had the turtle from August until March. I am uncertain of its cause of death. I'm honestly surprised that I kept it alive for that long.
To conclude, from the minimal research and personal experience I've gained for this silly post, I have found out that that is the basic cognitive pattern that baby turtles posses is instinct. Instinct is defined as "any behavior which did not require cognition or consciousness to perform." So I believe this proves my hypothesis that baby turtles have enough of a brain to be retarded. I'm sure they are very smart in the wild, but they just don't have the instinct to be a pet.
That's all I have to say about that...
xoxoxo,
Christina
(new year, new monogram design!)
