Turkey sex
2005-03-03 15:59:11.352442+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments
Grad student says that wild turkey mating is a collaborative, not competitive, endeavor.
The male, approaching a female in a courtship ritual with two or more of his brothers, will blush brilliantly red and blue about his face and throat, fan his broad brown and white tail, lower his outspread wings and emit loud thrumming noises through his air sacks as he prances in a shuffling strut.
And while he engages in his display, his brothers do so, too -- but silently and without the strut, in a kind of cooperative semi-courtship -- and they also turn to ward off any hostile interlopers seeking to court the same female.