Turtle researchers turn to sex toys to determine male and female of species

[Disir]

A Queensland university student says a vibrator can determine the sex of a turtle with 100 per cent accuracy for some species.

James Cook University PhD student Donald McKnight said if successful, the method could be used in Australia as a less invasive way to distinguish between a male and female.

"Most of the published methods are pretty invasive — like opening a turtle up surgically, which is stressful for the turtle and time consuming for the researcher," he said.

"We were trying to find basically, a better and cheaper way to determine which turtles were male and female and it turns out you can do that just with a cheap vibrator."
Researchers use vibrators to arouse and determine sex of turtles

Ok. I can't get past the picture of Donald McKnight smiling and holding the turtle. There is just something that is bad wrong with that.

 

[ScienceRocks]

cool

 

[flacaltenn]

A Queensland university student says a vibrator can determine the sex of a turtle with 100 per cent accuracy for some species.

James Cook University PhD student Donald McKnight said if successful, the method could be used in Australia as a less invasive way to distinguish between a male and female.

"Most of the published methods are pretty invasive — like opening a turtle up surgically, which is stressful for the turtle and time consuming for the researcher," he said.

"We were trying to find basically, a better and cheaper way to determine which turtles were male and female and it turns out you can do that just with a cheap vibrator."
Researchers use vibrators to arouse and determine sex of turtles

Ok. I can't get past the picture of Donald McKnight smiling and holding the turtle. There is just something that is bad wrong with that.

A Queensland university student says a vibrator can determine the sex of a turtle with 100 per cent accuracy for some species.

James Cook University PhD student Donald McKnight said if successful, the method could be used in Australia as a less invasive way to distinguish between a male and female.

"Most of the published methods are pretty invasive — like opening a turtle up surgically, which is stressful for the turtle and time consuming for the researcher," he said.

"We were trying to find basically, a better and cheaper way to determine which turtles were male and female and it turns out you can do that just with a cheap vibrator."
Researchers use vibrators to arouse and determine sex of turtles

Ok. I can't get past the picture of Donald McKnight smiling and holding the turtle. There is just something that is bad wrong with that.

I know it's hard to determine in turtles. Especially in Juveniles and very old turtles. Kinda neat idea. But it's overkill. For any box turtle in breeding stages of life, just put an old tennis shoe in with them and if they try to mate with it -- it's a male.

I've afraid that a vibrator could rupture or screw up the eggs in females. Maybe even make them egg bound.