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Posted by MiserMike on March 21, 2003 at 14:41:11:
In Reply to: Re: It's like unprotected sex... posted by hraaij on March 21, 2003 at 04:02:13:
:But this raises some other questions. Can you breed the in captivity and how should you do it then? Just have a very large tank or just put them togheter during mating season?
:And isn't it a bit lonely for a snapper to spend his live alone?
Allow me to speak from a position of relative ignorance, but trust the Southerners who have more experience.
I'm a Wisconsinite, and wouldn't even attempt to breed alligator snappers, since I'm guessing they need near-natural conditions, like a pretty good-sized outdoor pond with a suitable shoreline to lay in, and my spring/summer isn't long enough to induce breeding. Pure guess, but tank breeding seems unlikely; male snappers don't show the frenzied sex drive that some of the land tortoises do. And even though they're always after the girls, they're not successful a high percentage of the time.
As for lonely, I don't think most herps have the intelligence to get bored, and they're mostly solitary outside of mating seasons. As long as their appetites are satisfied (good food supply, proper temp, clean air & water, etc.) they seem to be OK with jus' chillin'. Granted, sex is an appetite, but I like to hope that The Big Idea doesn't occur to them without opposite-sex cues like pheromones, courtship postures, or whatever. Captive mammals show disfunctional-displacement sexual activity [read, dogs hump people's legs]but I haven't seen similar evidence of sexual frustration in my herps -- except for the well-documented male-iguana stuff. But then, iggies are crazy anyway. I enjoy my herps, but try to resist thinking of them as differently-shaped people, with human attitudes and priorities.
