Yes, they can breathe through their butts

A little-known and odd fact about turtles: they can breathe through their butts. At least, some of them can.

However, it’s not really breathing as we refer to it. It’s more like the way fish breathe: where specialized organs (in this case, sacs coming off of the turtle’s cloaca, which is sort of its equivalent of a digestive system) absorb oxygen present in water.

Not all turtles can do this, however, and some are better than others, but apparently red-eared sliders, which is what Grimm and Bones are, at least have the capability to breathe through their asses while they hibernate in the winter.

This really doesn’t sound the least bit pleasant, but I guess what else are you going to do when you’re 200 million years old and you’ve evolved everything else to perfection? May as well make your ass multi-purpose.

Although that brings up another issue: turtles sniff each other’s butts. So, you don’t know if some other turtle is saying “hi”, or if he’s trying to tell you that you have a serious case of ass-breath.

Turtle butt.

Reference