I have a young male eastern box turtle that I raised from a hatchling. About the time he was reaching sexual maturity and his colors were beginning to show, he only directed mounting and copulating behavior towards the males. He did this for three years. Now, two years after that, he breeds only with the females and spars in typical fashion with the males. I've seen this to a much lesser extent with gulf coast, florida, and desert box turtles...all with young males.

This is a pretty normal thing with young males of a variety of animals. Even in humans...most of us tend to exhibit homoerotic-type behaviors when puberty hits before we go after the opposite gender. But, it's impossible to equate homosexual behaviors in animals to homosexuality in humans. The least of the reasons...nobody influences gender roles with animals. They have to figure it out for themselves. I have a young male Hermann's tortoise that mounts the wrong end! I call him Billy (if you get that, congratulations on having a dark sense of humor).

I have a strong feeling that your male will change his behavior as he ages. Also, the turtle on the top looks like an Eastern, but the turtle on the bottom looks like a Florida. I've heard stories of different subspecies acting "confused" when it comes to breeding in mixed subspecies environments.

Either way, it's an interesting natural history note, even if the title of your post is a bit misleading and anthropomorphic.

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