Painted Turtle Mating Behavior [You Should Know]
fact checked & review by
Dr. Partho Kumar Shaha
Veterinarian (DVM)
The information is current and up-to-date in accordance with the latest veterinarian research.
Do you wish to bring another generation from your beloved painted turtles? Do you have a different fascination and love towards baby painted turtles? Well, to help you out I have listed all the painted turtle mating behaviors in this article.
According to the sort of behavior that they have, you can properly make them breed so that they give birth to cute baby painted turtles successfully.
Painted Turtle Mating Behavior
All the animals that exist in this planet have different mating behavior. The same goes for turtles. And then the other factor that works here is the species of these turtles.
Different species have different mating behaviors because of having different biological body structure and systems.
This is true for painted turtles too. So, let us now go through an overview of the details of the mating behavior of painted turtles.
Social behavior:
There is a tendency of showing dominance by the male painted turtles over the other male populations. This dominancy in behavior is seen when a male pained turtle has successfully mated with a female one. They tend to safeguard an area which they mark as their own territory by fighting with any other male present.
Hence, if you are keeping painted turtle, it is always preferable that you have a larger ratio of the female population compared to the male ones. Keeping two male painted turtles is enough.
Seasonal behavior:
Both the genders of the painted turtle differ in terms of seasonal behavior. The female turtles remain active and ready to mate during the late spring. And male painted turtles remain active during the fall. During the season when they are active each gender looks out for a corresponding mating partner.
Selection behavior:
Female painted turtles have the behavior of acting fussy or choosy while selecting their partners for mating. Hence, it is always better to keep the population ratio of males two times lower than the female population. This allows not having many options for selecting partners.
Sperm storage behavior:
The female painted turtles have sperm storage tubules in their internal structures. The tubules are present in the posterior portion of the albumin secreting region connected to the oviduct. By the help of sperm storage tubules, females can store sperms for up to 4 to 7 years.
This is done by females to have a backup in case it decides not to re-mate. It can then use the stored sperm and do self-fertilization in its body in the upcoming next nesting season.
Female behavior of taking benefits from multiple paternity:
The benefits that female want to take from multiple paternity includes nuptial gifts and assistance for guarding the eggs by the help of more than one male. Multiple paternity enables the success rate of hatching to be higher. So this enables the number of offspring to be larger in number.
Multiple mating behavior of females:
For increasing the genetic diversity female painted turtles have the tendency of mating with multiple male partners. Furthermore, in case the first male that the female has mated with has less fertility rate, the lacking gets covered up by mating with another male who is fertile.
Increasing genetic diversity also increases the quality of offspring. Such as it enables the babies have the capability to have a stronger immune system so that it can fight off a great number of diseases. There is also a chance of the evolution of a new species which is something that scientists always keep looking for. Furthermore, the benefit of multiple paternity comes from multiple mating.
Multiple mating behavior of males:
As males have the problem of having less success rate in terms of fertility, the same goes for females. Females might have the problem of having an oviduct that blogs the sperms from fusing with the egg. This can result in the fertilization to not happen.
Hence, multiple mating ensures that fertilization is happening in at least one female body. This thing is important as the mating season of these turtles come only once a year. Apart from resulting in successful fertilization, it is important for bringing in genetic variation.
Final Verdict:
To sum up, to ensure that the painted turtles breed successfully, it is essential that the pet owners know about their mating behavior. There is a specific reason for each sort of behavior that they show, so that they can play along with nature.
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About Author
Muntaseer Rahman started keeping pet turtles back in 2013. He also owns the largest Turtle & Tortoise Facebook community in Bangladesh. These days he is mostly active on Facebook.