Pygmy Turtles As Pets

Worldwide, millions of red eared sliders are sold every year in the pet trade. Red eared sliders are very attractive turtles as babies though most will darken in coloration with age. It happens far too often that when a pet red eared slider reaches a larger size- typically 5” or larger, than their owner had anticipated that the turtle ends up in a turtle rescue or, worse, released into the wild. Turtle rescues will struggle to find placements for turtles this large. There just aren’t as many pet owners and turtle keepers who are dedicated enough to have larger tubs or ponds which can accommodate those larger turtles. And for the dedicated keepers who have the space and are willing to set up proper caging for larger turtles, their interests are often not in the most common of species such as red eared sliders and yellow bellied turtles. Snapping turtles, which can have wonderful- even friendly, personalities in captivity, can not typically be housed with many other turtles in the same enclosure. This makes placing unwanted larger snapping turtles even harder than sliders and cooters. Do NOT believe old wive’s tales that a turtle can be kept smaller by keeping it in a smaller container. This is not true and a properly kept turtle will continue to grow until it reaches its adult size. For these reasons, we believe that small adult size is an essential requirement of an ideal pet turtle. Pygmy turtles have that small adult size. 

Unfortunately, throughout the world, when owners of some of the more common species of pet turtles find that their turtles have gotten too large to care for, they opt to release them into the wild. This can be devastating for a turtle if the area that they are released into cannot support them with proper temperatures or food. The poor turtle who thrived in captivity may struggle to survive in the wild. Or, the turtle may thrive. Red eared sliders are now established in the wild in many parts of the world where they are not native to meaning that those turtles are breeding and reproducing in that new environment. Once these populations are established, they may or may not have an impact on native species. There is a growing public, academic, and regulatory perspective that any introduced species will have a negative impact on the environment. We can not always predict whether an introduced species will have a negative impact on a given area. The fact is that only some introduced species are harmful and properly labeled “invasive” but those distinctions between merely being an addition rather than being a harmful invasive species are too often lost in modern times. This has led to laws and regulations that negatively impact all of us. Those laws have even had impacts in places like Florida (where Best Pet Turtle is located) where normal red eared sliders are no longer allowed to routinely be sold as pets. In previous decades, Florida’s Game and Fish Commission played an active role in introducing species such as peacock bass as a new species to be enjoyed by Florida’s residents, but, now, right or wrong, prevalent attitudes have changed and all new species are too often presumed detrimental, often causing overly harsh regulations which affect even those who would never release an animal into the wild. If you reach a point where you no longer want want your Pygmy Turtle, it is up to you to find a proper home for it. Never release them into the wild. Likely, your pet turtle may not survive in the wild but even if it did, and even if it did no harm, the results may be devastating for the rest of us. I encourage you, where legal, to attempt to sell your unwanted Pygmy Turtle to one of the many people hoping to add a pet turtle to their life. If you can not find a local buyer, please also reach out to us as we are often willing to buy healthy Pygmy Turtles for resale as we have much demand for these turtles. Do the right thing for your turtle and for the rest of us. 

(Note: We at Best Pet Turtle have in the past and do now keep and breed several larger species of turtles and we very much enjoy them. It is our sincere hope that some of you who start with Pygmy Turtles go on to keep a variety of species of various sizes, maybe even taking in unwanted larger turtles, but most people will only ever keep 1 or a few pet turtles and we believe that should almost always be a species that stays small.)

Having emphasized that small size is important for a turtle to be considered the Best Pet Turtle, now let’s consider how Pygmy Turtles compare favorably with other small species. We love all small turtles here at Best Pet Turtle and think that smaller species should be the focus of most turtle keepers and breeders, but we think that Pygmy Turtles offer an overall advantage over other species that we have kept or encountered. We think what puts Pygmy Turtles over the top is a combination of their boldness, coloration, ease of care, non-defensive attitude, and their non-native status that make them rise above the rest. Pygmy Turtle babies all start off uniformly a monotone dark coloration but within a couple of months start to develop yellow coloration on their legs and necks. In fact, we recommend that beginner keepers wait until at least a small amount of yellow appears on a baby Pygmy Turtle before acquiring it. The faint beginning of yellow coloration developing om their skin is an indicator that the baby Pygmy Turtle has undergone growth since hatching and is presumably feeding and thriving. Pygmy Turtles are bold. They are unique in this trait. Spotted turtles are bold. Narrow-bridges musk turtles can be quite bold. But Pygmy Turtles can hold their own with species that will approach their owners, especially if they think food will be offered. I love walking up to my tubs of Pygmy Turtles and seeing some of them scramble towards me hoping to be offered food. Even when I am digging up clutches of eggs in the Spring, it is common for a Pygmy Turtle to crawl out on land and curiously approach me. I notice after a couple of months that even some baby Pygmy Turtles will start exhibiting boldness as I feed them. To be sure, personalities will vary from turtle to turtle and sometimes turtles will be more bold in certain set ups over others, but pygmy turtles are not a shy species. Most keepers will appreciate a species which recognizes them and interacts. Pygmy turtles will do this. 

Pygmy turtles have a pleasing coloration to them. Pygmy turtles typically have a black shell, occasionally with some saddle coloration showing through, and black top to their head and tail with ample yellow coloration filling in their necks and back legs. They are pretty uniform in coloration from individual to individual and can be hard to tell apart. Some will have slightly brighter colors than others, but you can be sure that if you order a Pygmy Turtle, even sight unseen, that you will be receiving a turtle with pleasing black and yellow coloration. Sure, there are other small species with more color such as spotted turtles. I enjoy the reds near the face of a Tabasco mud turtle. The tan and black patterning of species like loggerhead musk turtles I find quite attractive too, but, again, Pygmy turtles are not bland. Perhaps pygmy turtles aren’t the most colorful small turtle, but they are colorful enough to hold their own. 

An area where I would put Pygmy Turtles up against any other small species of turtle is ease of care. Every aquatic turtle, no matter what the species, requires sufficient space, clean enough water, proper temperatures, and adequate food to thrive. Pygmy turtles can be raised from hatching to old age on a diet of only readily available commercial turtle pellet food. Sure, a pygmy turtle will love to eat whole or pieces of fish and worms and other items, but all they require is a decent pellet food. This makes them easier, especially as babies, than some other turtle species. We have fed many different turtle pellets to our pygmy turtles including ZooMed, Mazuri, Hikari, and Reptomin and I presume they would readily accept any other quality turtle pellets. As keepers, we should always strive to provide the freshest or best filtered water for our turtles, but pygmy turtles are forgiving if those conditions falter. 

After all, pygmy turtles are also known as African dwarf mud turtles and it is quite likely that they spend some time in the wild in muddy waters. We always want to strive to provide clean water to our pygmy turtles, but it is good to know that they can be forgiving of challenges. Pygmy turtles are not known to hibernate but they can survive temporary cooler temperatures. It is not yet established how cool a pygmy turtle can survive for how long of a time. We recommend keeping pygmy turtles at temperatures befitting a tropical species of turtle. It is likely that baby and juvenile pygmy turtles especially require properly maintained temperatures, but we have observed no ill effects from adult pygmy turtles being exposed to outside temperatures even down into the 40’s F when such situations inadvertently occurred here at Best Pet Turtle. We do recommend water temperatures routinely be maintained in the mid-70’s to mid-80’s F for pygmy turtles and that extreme temperatures should be avoided. We heat the water in our outdoor tubs if we expect nighttime low temperatures to drop below 60F. We arbitrarily chose that number. Unlike, some tropical species of turtles, pygmy turtles can withstand brief stints of cooler temperatures. The ability to keep numerous pygmy turtles in the same enclosure will be welcomed by collectors and breeders if not the pet owners who keep a single animal. But on that note, it is important to add that we recommend keeping pygmy turtles in water no deeper than 5-6” for multiple adults. Pygmy turtles breed readily in captivity but, unfortunately, the males will pester the females in their breeding attempts and it is possible for them to inadvertently drown each other by preventing them from returning to the surface to breathe. It may even be possible for a male to drown another male during dominance struggles. As long as water depths are kept shallow enough, the turtle being dominated should always be able to stand on the bottom on their back legs and extend their necks to the surface to breathe. In properly shallow water, we would feel quite comfortable keeping 3 adult pygmy turtles in a readily available 20 gallon long aquarium set up (including a haul out area for basking and rest) or 5 adults in the commercially available small Waterland tubs. We will also note here that some breeders have reported baby and small pygmy turtles permanently damaging each other by biting in a behavior known as “nipping.” This can be harmful or even fatal in extreme circumstances. Furthermore, there are reports of baby pygmy turtles cohabitating fine for months and then aggressively nipping. We have raised dozens of pygmy turtles and never observed any of them do this, but we want to make you aware of these credible reports. We presume that our use of very dense fake aquarium plants in our small pygmy turtle enclosures allow them to avoid each other if nipping is attempted. We do recommend unfiltered sunlight or full spectrum UV artificial lighting for all turtle species including pygmy turtles.  We have cohoused pygmy turtles with several other turtle species and never observed aggression by pygmy turtles towards those other turtles, though one should carefully observe such situations to watch for any exceptions. 

Pygmy turtles generally do not bite in defense. While baby pygmy turtles may attempt to bite a finger if they are frightened, their tiny mouths are just too small to latch on. We have never observed an adult pygmy turtle attempting to bite its keeper. The one time that we have been bit inadvertently by an adult pygmy turtle was when groping around in the water of the tub after just having fed the pygmy turtle fish and it mistakenly bit a finger. It was not painful and did not break the skin. 

More and more in the United States, we are seeing laws against keeping species that are native to a given area. Different jurisdictions will have vastly different philosophies with some areas preferring native species to be kept over exotic species but most areas now seem to be moving towards disallowing native species to be kept in captivity, even common species. We see this as another potential advantage of pygmy turtles as the Best Pet Turtle. Pygmy turtles face no known population challenges in their native range of Congo and are not subject to any international rules such as a C.I.T.E.S. designation. This is good news for the import and export trade of pygmy turtles. Hopefully worldwide captive breeding efforts of pygmy turtles will help satisfy captive demand and play a role in keeping demand for wild caught specimens at continuously sustainable levels. We are not opposed to importation of wild caught pygmy turtles if done responsibly but we also champion breeding efforts to help ensure long term sustainability.