Do turtles breathe out of their butts?
Yes, some turtles breathe out of their butts, though turtles don’t actually have butts but rather cloacas. For the purposes of this article we’ll use the terms interchangeably. However, they only do this in the water as it is the water that they are getting oxygen from, not the air.
The technical term for this type of breathing is cloacal respiration and turtles aren’t the only ones to breathe this way. Frogs, salamanders, sea snakes, sea cucumbers, and even some fish can absorb oxygen through this same process or a very similar one.
Which turtles can breathe out of their cloaca?
Not all turtles are the same on the inside. Different species of turtle have adapted to their surroundings in different ways. Below is a small sample of the turtle species that are the best at breathing through their bottoms when they need to survive.
https://wildlifeinformer.com/do-turtles-breathe-out-of-their-butts/