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my russian tortoise who is a full size adult male. Tucked his head in his shell last night after he walked all the way to the wall and rocked his body back in fourth in certain motion. Banging the front of his shell onto the wall. He was banging his head real hard and i quickly grabbed him and put him back in his tank. Im really worried that he was probebly mad or upset or something. He could of cracked or broke his shell how hard he was hitting the wall or even put a little hole in the wall. Has anyone ever noticed this ? and what should i do please i need help ???

im not at home right know but i think the cool side is in the 70's and the basking temp is about 94 to about 102. hes in a 60 gallon tub with alfalfa meal under him. hes got two lamps one for uva, and uvb. one for heat. also when this happened he wasnt in the tub. i put him on the floor in my room to let him walking around and not feel to confined. he walked up to the wall tucked his head in and started to bang his shell on the wall. it was loud and scary

i hope so. he scared me to death. i was sitting on my bed and started to hear a loud thudding all the sudden. i looked at him and he was banging his shell real hard up against the wall.

How is he acting now that he is back in his enclosure?

very well behaved

I think Lilturtlsquirt was right then, he probably just got spooked being out of his normal environment. I have Pickle in a dry enclosure right now (a tub I set up for a tortoise and then never got the tortoise) Just temporarily while I clean his tank, and he's not happy about it either. He is hiding in the "house" and peeking out at me !

why cant turtles and tortoises be smart enough like dogs to recongize us as there carers and owners.

I think my turtles do recognize me, they react to me differently then they do to strangers. Of course it IS different than how my dog responds to me too. I tend not to think of it as the turtles 'not being as smart' as dogs, just DIFFERENT from dogs. They are reptiles and dogs are mammals and their brains work differently. One isn't better than the other, reptile brains are GOOD at doing the things a reptile needs to do to be successful and dog brains are good at doing tasks dogs need to do to be successful. In a test of pure intelligence my parrot would probably beat my dog hands (paws/claws) down, but my dog is more responsive and affectionate to me than the bird.