GPS tracking is giving us a revealing peek into wild turkeys’ sex lives, defense mechanisms, and more.
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.onearth.org
Happy Thanksgiving. I tucked into a little turkey a couple of nights ago although we don’t actually celebrate Thanksgiving in New Zealand. You wouldn’t think so given that our retailers are having Black Friday sales. Nothing you would line up overnight for, just the usual weekend sale with a different name.
So in order to have turkeys, they need to have sex and some people decided to use GPS to learn more about their sex lives. Going by this article they also learned a bit about the hunters which might make the stories of the great lengths they went to, to put that monster bird on your plate this weekend.
What did they learn? Well they are a little different to us and to each other. For example some turkeys are maternal and next after they have laid their eggs it’s not unusual for them to pop the eggs under a different turkeys nest. Mixing up the brood is pretty normal any way given that they will also quite often mate with multiple toms and deliver a mix of babies. I guess this in part explains why they typically don’t sleep in the same place every night.
You can learn a lot from GPS tracking, so when you tuck into your Thanksgiving dinner tonight, I hope I’ve given you a few factoids to share with you friends and family. Like a turkey can carry sperm for 57 days, but don’t worry it’s way more than 2 months from mating season.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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