Twice Upon a Honu by Turtle Trax

One of the more puzzling honu behaviours we see is mounting. Male sea turtles are notorious for mounting... well, just about anything they can, or so the stories go, anyway. (Check the Googles.) In our experience, honu males aren't quite as indiscriminate. Except for a couple of occasions when the turtle on the bottom actually was female, we've only seen them mounting other males.

The general assumption is that sea turtle mounting attempts are sexual. (Again, ask the Googles.) Our observations don't back that up, however. In all the male-on-male mounting events we've seen, none of them has involved a penis. So we think something else is happening. Exactly what, we'd love to know.

At any rate, on our August 8 2009 dive, one male was particularly interested in another. Both incidents in this video involve the same two honu.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• honu
• honokowai
• maui
• green turtle
• sea turtle
• marine turtle