Vision
Turtles have sharp vision. They are also good at color discrimination. The Greek tortoise favors yellow flowers.
Intelligence
Turtles are not very bright. Most seem smarter than salamanders but not as smart as cats and dogs. They will learn to discriminate between some colors and some will even work their way through a simple maze, but a monkey would put all of turtledom to shame.
Sounds
Some large sea turtles and giant land tortoises are noisy, especially when they mate, but by and large most are mute. Noises come not only from their throats but also from the clicking of jaws and the rubbing of legs. Many sounds credited to turtles come from other sources and are reported inaccurately. For an exception to the rule, the big-headed turtle (Platysternon) actually screams when it is picked up.
Longevity
The records for longevity lend themselves to stretching. For example, there was and perhaps still is on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena a specimen which was reported to have been a pet of Napoleon during his imprisonment there. Later it was determined that Napoleon's turtle had died in 1877 and was replaced by the present claimant in 1882. This claimant's name is Jonathan. Another turtle on St. Helena fell over a cliff in 1918 and died at the age of 120 years plus whatever her age was at the time she arrived from Aldabra.
Another famous turtle was Tui Malila. Legends described it as a giant Galapagos land tortoise which was given by Captain James Cook to the Queen of Tonga in 1773 or 1777. It finally expired on May 19, 1966. If no one played the shell game here, it represents the record for longevity. I advise you not to put any sincere money on a bet about it. Even though this narrative appears in several books, "it ain't necessarily so." Dr. Osmond P. Breland, while he was Professor of Zoology at the University of Texas, wrote that Captain Cook had nothing to do with the transportation of that turtle, and furthermore, it wasn't even native to the Galapagos but rather to Madagascar.