A possible lead on Great A-tuin's sex

[unseenu]

I was reading a book of factoids the other day and came across this interesting bullet point:

You can tell a turtle's gender by the noise it makes:males grunt,females hiss

Therefore I ask you has there been any reference to the kind of noise atuin makes in any discworld work?We can include the tv adaptations in this since sound effects might be more useful than written description here

[The Mad Collector]

I don't remember Great A'Tuin making any noises after all who would he/she be communicating with?

[Jan Van Quirm]

I always think of Great A'tuin as being female - from the Light Fantastic and returning to the Astrochelonian spawning grounds close to the red star...?

[Tonyblack]

In space no one can hear you grunt!

[Dotsie]

I think laying eggs answered the question. So I'm prepared to say that she's a she.

[flammableben]

I don't think that Space Turtles adhere to classic gender types

[Tonyblack]

I think laying eggs answered the question. So I'm prepared to say that she's a she.

But did A'tuin lay the eggs? All we know is that he/she arrived at a point in space where some eggs hatched.

It is not typical turtle behaviour (as far as I know) to return to any eggs they have laid.

[Dotsie]

It certainly wouldn't be for a male

Anyway, how do we know what's typical for a space turtle? We only know one. So, taking the view of palaeontologists, we have insufficient data, so for argument's sake we assume a similarity with what we do know. Proximity to eggs = female. There!

[raisindot]

Has to be a female. If A'tuin were a male, he'd have a female A'tuin at his side telling him to go slower, move left to avoid hitting that asteroid, and stop at the nearest Auditor to ask directions.

[Jan Van Quirm]

The females always go back to the beach they hatched from to lay eggs and I'm fairly certain (do we have any marine biologists here?) that adults of both genders go back to the birthing beaches and wait for the hatchlings to make it into the water (having survived the main infant mortality attrition obstacle of getting down the beach and into the sea) to give them some protection. The fact that A'tuin goes back to the spawning ground region and sees the new discworld hatchlings bears out both parenthood theories, with the birthing aspect definitely supplying a strong case for being female

On the subject of behavioural traits for Astrochelonian mating habits - perhaps they only mate the once and at a stage where life isn't in a state of advanced evolution so the worries of Krull as to any trysting ceremonies might have been over-estimated if they 'do it' like earth turtles. Personally as things hydraulic might be severely strained in space I'd plump for them mating more externally like fish rather than as reptiles...

[Tiffany]

Has to be a female. If A'tuin were a male, he'd have a female A'tuin at his side telling him to go slower, move left to avoid hitting that asteroid, and stop at the nearest Auditor to ask directions.

I like this.

Definitely female. No male turtle would be that attentive to their young.

[unseenu]

All I have achieved with my possible lead is to dig up all the old arguments on the subject

Does TP himself know? if not he could certainly go and have a look

[Tonyblack]

I'm pretty certain that none of the great sea turtles return to their eggs once they have laid them. They return to the same beach to lay each time, but once the eggs are laid, the hatchlings are on their own.

[Sjoerd3000]

But A'tuin is a star turtle Maybe they do go back

[meerkat]

I'm no Marine Biologist but according to my BBC nature vids the females leave the eggs and return to the sea as do the males once they have mated.


The females lay thier eggs to the moons cycle so that the tide is higher when the eggs hatch. That's the best they can do and then the little ones are on thier own. That's why sharks, crocks and birds turn up the night before. How they know is a mystery.