Peeking into the Sex Lives of Endangered Turtles

In a recently published study in Molecular Ecology, scientists were able to shed some light on the relatively unknown mating habits of hawksbill turtles.  By studying the DNA of the mothers and of the offspring, they were able to construct paternal genotypes that provided an incredible amount of information about the mating systems of hawksbill turtles, including that more than 90% of females only mate with a single male. This study also provides an optimistic look at the preservation of these turtles, because scientists found a lot of genetic diversity in their samples, which indicates that there are a lot of genetically viable male hawksbill turtles. These could indicate that this species may not be as endangered as scientists had previously thought.