Revisiting the same-sex mounting in chelonians under the concept of whole-animal

João Fabrício Mota Rodrigues, Yuxiang Liu, Yehudah L. Werner*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Most vertebrate species are bisexual. But as well as the sexual behavior, same-sex mating-like behavior sometimes occurs. Recently, the same-sex mounting reported from chelonians was reviewed. The potential causes for such behavior that were hypothesized, such as dearth of correct mates or expression of dominance, are of the social domain. On further consideration, it may be instructive to view animals more holistically. We propose here two additional hypothetical causes: intersex gonads, on which we present new data, and misleading body size, on which we speculate from recent literature. We also revisit the effect of the sex ratio on the frequency of same-sex mounting.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)349-353
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Ethology
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Japan Ethological Society and Springer Japan.

Keywords

  • Hermaphroditism
  • Intersex
  • Mating
  • Ovotestis
  • Tortoises
  • Turtles

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