comparing turtle eggs to snake eggs is about a far apart as you can get.

Turtle eggs are about the weirdest bunch of things you can have, they diapause or not, they are laid, clear, banded, white, then hatch. etc.

Colubrid eggs are nice and simple, they are deposited, then develop until then hatch. How nice and normal. Larger varanids and turts and torts, should have been live bearers.

Some species, like subocs, lay both spring and fall(known by many), I have strong evidence that their fall eggs overwinter(seen it). Also, subocs, transpecos ratsnakes, commonly have two distint sizes of babies during the year. Many snakes do this many sizes of babies, specially around here. In other parts of the country, like SoCal, there is a distint wave of offspring. Again, how nice and clean.

But both turtles and colubrids are doing the same things, they develop techiques that will allow offspring a high percentage to do more then hatch, to achieve the real goal, to survive. After all, who cares if the eggs hatch, if the babies cannot survive. There is lots to think about here. For instance, neonate survival is practiced every year if not more, so it is one of the faster developing behaviors. FR

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