R EPTILES, THE SNAPPING TURTLE H OW THEY LIVE By : Ellie Shim.
7
REPTILES, THE SNAPPING TURTLE HOW THEY LIVE By : Ellie Shim
-
Upload
della-berry -
Category
Documents
-
view
212 -
download
0
Transcript of R EPTILES, THE SNAPPING TURTLE H OW THEY LIVE By : Ellie Shim.
REPTILES, THE SNAPPING TURTLEHOW THEY LIVEBy : Ellie Shim
BASIC LIFE CYCLE
First they are born as an egg
Then they hatch
They start to grow alone.
Then be-come an adult.
STARTING TO MATE
The snapping turtles hibernate through winter and then wake up in may. As soon as they wake up they fill up their energy and start to mate.
The mating process is very aggressive. First the males choose who to mate with. They chase the females. The females flee and try to hide. The male grasps the end of the females’ carapace then mounts her, holding the ends of the shell with all four legs. After that the males often bites the head and neck of the female and starts to mate.
ALERT! TIME TO LAY MY EGGS!
Around mid June the snapping turtles’ nesting will start. The females will under-take a large place to lay her eggs. This place should be preferably sandy and sunny. Then the males start to migrate but stay near the place where the female will lay the eggs.
After the female has laid her eggs the male will take off to home. Then some of the females will too migrate.
I THINK IT’S TIME TO GO OUT
In mid September the eggs will start to hatch. This is from 90 to 120 days since the eggs were laid. This is great news to the preda-tors and bad news for the hatchlings. Most of the hatchlings will get eaten as soon as they are born.
Sometimes the weather can be to cold for the hatching to happen. The eggs will try to get over the winter. That is very possible for the eggs that were laid near the South, because the ground does not freeze.
NEARLY GROWN
The turtles are born nearly at the time to hibernate. They will start to move around to find a place to hiber-nate. This will be around mid October.
50% of the turtles will hibernate in their home range. However, the other half would hibernate out of their home range. They would travel about 3.9 km.
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…
This is the life cycle of a snapping turtle. Which means this process will be happening again and again. Watch and enjoy this video.
http://youtu.be/WWjVH-lOzv0
