Hi, Mr. Nature here. And I promised “Unknowable” he would see a turtle’s courtship dance today, so here it is. There’s actually quite a lot of video on this subject, but most of it’s a little muddled.
The male painted turtle has the long claws for gently caressing the female. The female is larger than the male in this species.
Most North American water turtles are closely related, even if they look very different from one species to another, so it’s not unusual to see a young, inexperienced painted turtle trying to court a false map turtle or a red-eared slider.
Our poor turtle was trying to court a ceramic turtle, which produced from him a very long and drawn-out courtship ritual during which he tried every trick in the book. We did not foresee this when we thought this would be a nice little decorative touch for his surroundings, and installed the fake turtle. He couldn’t tell it from the real thing, and it must have been a trying experience for him.
Thanks for posting that, Lee. My life is a bit more complete for having seen love through reptilian eyes. 🙂
When I was in grade school, reptiles were thought to be essentially mindless creatures with little more that the very basics behaviorally, but it’s obvious that somehow, against all odds, the educational system was wrong in this instance. 🙂 Obviously, these turtles are much more than mindless automatons.
“He couldn’t tell it from the real thing, and it must have been a trying experience for him.” With regard to your turtle, just be glad that there wasn’t a turtle Oprah waiting to expose your misdeeds. 🙂
We made it up to him. He had scallops for dinner that night.
That would make up for things. The good news is; he probably forgot all about it as soon as the ceramic turtle was out of sight.
Hmphh, just like a man! 🙂
yiu done a Micro Grecian on me!!
🙂