Turtle swelled into a ball after being bitten by mosquitoes, and the woman punctured it with a needle for treatment! Do turtles die from mosquito bites?

Recently, a woman in Fujian posted a video on the Internet. In the video, the head of a turtle was swollen like a ball. It was listless but very cute, which attracted widespread attention.

The woman claimed the turtle's head was swollen from a mosquito bite. Due to rumors, the turtle will die after being bitten by mosquitoes, and she has been raising this turtle for a year and does not want to give up, so she tried various "home remedies" provided by netizens to treat her turtle.

Among them, a netizen with experience in breeding gave the woman a trick, saying that you can puncture the swollen area with a needle, then disinfect it in time, and then put it in purified water and add some vitamins to keep it for a while, and the turtle may get better.

The woman tried this method. Because the swelling was too severe, the turtle's head had become inflexible, at least it certainly couldn't be retracted, so when the woman poked it with a needle, the turtle did not have any stress response.

It could be seen that the woman really wanted to help the turtle. She sterilized the needles, but she explained later that the needles had no effect.

So the question is, why do turtles have such a big reaction to being bitten by mosquitoes? Is it true that a turtle that has been bitten by mosquitoes will die?

Do mosquitoes bite turtles?

For us, mosquitoes are probably one of the most annoying animals in the world. They are everywhere, chasing us and biting, and if we are not careful, we will have a few more bags on our body.

Although the mosquito bag seems to have no lethality, at most it is uncomfortable to itch, but in fact its lethality is much greater than expected. Mosquito bites cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, more than any animal. , because many diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes.

However, it should be noted here that all blood-sucking mosquitoes are female mosquitoes. They need proteins and amino acids in their blood to lay eggs, while male mosquitoes eat nectar, so mosquitoes are still excellent pollinators.

I have seen many people say that mosquitoes will not bite cold-blooded turtles. To dispel the rumors here, although mosquitoes do prefer to bite us, warm-blooded animals, they will not let go of cold-blooded animals. Many cold-blooded animals that do not eat mosquitoes are probably the same as us - the most annoying thing is mosquitoes.

Due to the short lifespan of adult mosquitoes, they need to suck blood as soon as possible to complete reproduction, so in order to suck blood, female mosquitoes have a series of detection methods.

These include a keen sense of smell, highly specialized vision, and the ability to perceive heat.

Among all these detection methods, the most powerful is the sense of smell. Mosquitoes, like us, can "smell" many chemicals. They use these chemicals to judge whether they should approach. The key is carbon dioxide. It's fragrant for mosquitoes, just like the smell of our food.

Mosquito eyes, like many insects, are compound eyes—each eye is made up of many ommatidia. Unlike our eyes, which can see static objects clearly, compound eyes have evolved specifically to capture moving objects.

The function of heat perception is more designed to find warm-blooded animals, but there is no difference in the ability to find chemicals and moving objects.

Therefore, it is normal for turtles to be bitten by mosquitoes, but will they have a huge bag like in the video, or will it be directly incurable as the rumors say?

Will turtles die after being bitten by mosquitoes?

It is estimated that there are rumors in many places that turtles will die after being bitten by mosquitoes, and that the burning of turtle shells can repel mosquitoes. This may be related to the general belief in the ancients that all things in the world are interdependent. Mosquitoes are the nemesis of turtles, so turtles must also be able to Anti-mosquito.

This is not the case, turtles and mosquitoes do not have much mutualistic properties.

The reason why we pack up after being bitten by mosquitoes is because mosquitoes release some chemicals to us in order to better suck blood, and our immune system will remove these foreign chemicals, redness and itching are such " Allergic reaction caused by the "Clear Plan".

For cold-blooded animals, mosquito bites don't cause a very obvious allergic reaction like we do, and they don't scratch it like we do to cause further infection.

Therefore, if the turtles are bitten by mosquitoes, they will basically not have too obvious external characteristics, and they will not lose their lives.

Cold-blooded animals generally live in areas with high temperatures. Animals like turtles also live in humid places. It can be said that their habitats and various mosquitoes are highly overlapping. If a turtle is bitten by a mosquito, it will lose its life. , then no turtle can live to this day.

It may be true that burning turtle shells can repel mosquitoes, but as we mentioned earlier, mosquitoes are very sensitive to smells, and they may not like the chemicals produced by the burning of turtle shells.

Of course, burning other weeds is likely to have a similar effect, because the chemicals released by burning can at least confuse mosquitoes and make it harder for them to find their targets.

Since turtles are unlikely to die from mosquito bites, what happened to this lady's turtle in Fujian?

Why do many people believe that turtles cannot be bitten by mosquitoes?

In fact, healthy turtles are difficult to be bitten by mosquitoes. On the contrary, turtles are typical omnivores. They will eat anything that comes close to them (the part they can eat), including insects.

The turtles we see being bitten by mosquitoes are basically sick. In the animal world, some simple diseases often mean the end of life.

So, I think a lot of people get causality wrong. The fact is that the turtle was bitten by mosquitoes because it was sick first, and what really killed the turtle was the disease, not the mosquito bite, but we saw that the dead turtle was bitten by the mosquito before that.

Maybe the lady in Fujian did see a mosquito bite her turtle, but the mosquito may have been wronged this time, and the bag should not have been left by a mosquito.

Turtles are cold-blooded animals. Generally, after autumn or when the water temperature is lower than 20 °C, their feeding and other activities will decrease, and their responses will become slow.

At this time in the wild, they will find some safe places to hide and prepare for hibernation at any time, but in the artificial breeding environment, this is often ignored, and the breeding conditions are not adjusted in time, which eventually causes the turtles to get sick.

Before and after the white dew, the turtles are most likely to get mumps - a very common disease in the turtle world. It is believed that the turtles with mumps will have this kind of head swelling. If not treated in time, the whole body will be red, swollen and festering until die.

Small turtles are the most likely to get mumps. Judging from their body size, the turtle of this Fujian lady should be a small turtle about 1 year old, so I speculate that this turtle has mumps (my personal guess).

Finally: Is this turtle edible?

I saw a lot of people suggesting that this lady can be stewed and eaten, but this kind of soft-shelled turtle is not recommended.

Mumps is a disease caused by a virus, but the sick soft-shelled turtle can infect various bacteria, which aggravates the disease, so this kind of sick soft-shelled turtle is no longer suitable for eating.