Itsy Bitsy Biters: Male Northern Map Turtles (Graptemys geographica) Bite Females During Mating Attempts

We report on field observations of males biting females as part of mating attempts in the northern map turtle (Graptemys geographica), a species in which females are much larger than males. The function of biting is not clear, but we surmise, based on our previous work on the same population, that biting may be part of a coercive mating strategy. Based on previous comparative analyses of turtle mating behaviors, this potentially coercive mating strategy is unexpected given the direction of sexual size dimorphism in map turtles.