Questions:
- How do turtles mate and how often do they mate?
- At what age do they lay eggs?
- How long is the reproductive cycle?
- Asked by Soo HK, Joey How, Foo Swee Lee
Answers:
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Turtles mate with the male mounted on top of the female. The male turtle wraps his tail around the female’s in order to inseminate her. The penis is not exposed and is kept internal at other times. The mating position in marine turtles can last up to 8 hours!! This is probably the reason why some indigenous people prize the turtle penis as an aphrodisiac. In marine turtles, males are polygamous and will mate with multiple partners during the reproductive season. The female similarly can be inseminated by several males, confirmed by multiple paternity of hatchlings from within a single clutch of eggs.
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Turtles take many years to reach maturation. In marine turtles, it can be between 20-30 years. The same holds true for freshwater turtles like river and painted terrapins.
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This varies among species. Marine turtles like green turtles usually nest at intervals of 3-5 years. River terrapins nest annually.
This post is part of Turtle Blogathon 2009, where we stayed up for 24-straight-hours to blog about turtles. To make a donation, please visit the Donations page. Posts written during the Turtle Blogathon are filed in the Turtle Blogathon 2009 category.
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How do male turtles identify a female turtles prior to mating? This question has fascinated me ever since I heard about a certain volunteer or was it an RA that was actually erm.. mounted by an amorous male turtle off the shores of Chagar Hutang….
LOL Lim, and she shouted “tolong, tolong,” as related by Adi. Mounting was attempted but unsuccessful I think.
Its probably by pheromones (animal hormones), but when a rutting male is desperate, it may be less than discriminate :)