BEIJING, July 22 (Chinese media) -- China's evening TV news
program has received an unexpected spectator recently -- a tortoise who seems to
be crazy about the anchorman's voice.
Whenever the pet tortoise raised by a citizen in
south China's Chongqing Municipality hears CCTV's 7 p.m. news broadcast on the
air, she comes out of her bathtub and absorbs herself in the television,
Chongqing Evening News reported Monday.
China's evening TV news program has
received an unexpected spectator recently -- a tortoise who seems to be
crazy about the anchorman's voice. (Photo:
cqwb.com.cn/Agencies)
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"Every time she hears the anchorman's voice from the
newscast, she would stop whatever she had been busy with and stretches her head
from the shell immediately," her owner Liu Jie told the paper.
Liu bought the animal for 8 yuan (1.2 U.S. dollars)
last year. She happened to discover the turtle's keen interest in watching the
news when Liu's mother was watching TV with the tortoise beside her. She was
then given the nickname "Dr. Turtle," according to the paper.
Dr. Turtle seems to care for the anchorwoman much
less than the anchorman, and she shows little interest in soap operas or other
programs," it said.
The paper said Liu bought another turtle as a
playmate for Dr. Turtle in May and now the new member always watch news programs
with her together.
Tu Jing, the reporter with the paper, told Chinese media she
went to visit Dr. Turtle on Sunday. The turtles stop playing with each other and
became quiet as the afternoon news started.
When Dr Turtle heard the voice of the anchorman, she
slowly climbed up on to the shell of the other turtle to watch, Tu said.
A netizen called "fangjunbmw" said at
zhidao.baidu.com, a popular online forum, his pet turtle also liked watching TV
programs and they usually held his interest for about 10 minutes.
The paper also published a photo of the turtle
clinging to the bathtub and facing the television. But a netizen on sohu.com
suspected it was a set-up. "I don't believe turtles can climb so high and stand
still without falling down," he wrote.
Officials in Chengdu Institute of Biology, the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Kunming Institute of Zoology, both told
Chinese media in telephone interviews they had no research on such a phenomena and had
no idea why turtles would like to watch TV.
"Turtles may have emotional feelings, just like human
beings, or maybe she feels comfortable about the frequency of the anchorman's
voice," said Chen Rongying, a Beijing college student.
Pet turtles also have other anecdotes. This March,
Chinese media reported a turtle in the northeast Jilin Province with a fondness for
smoking and a craving for tobacco. The animal could smoke a cigarette within
four minutes.
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