Skittish turtles come out of their shells thanks to 3D printed sex dolls

Normally skittish male northern mapturtlesare coming out of their shells with the help of some nifty 3D printing.

Carleton University biologist Grgory Bultstudies the breed and has been wondering for years whether male northern maps are attracted to larger females.

But the turtles don't do well in captivity, have nervous characters and mate at the bottom of lakes, making it difficult to study their mating patterns. So Bult and his team printed two 3D replicas of female northern map turtles, identical except for their size: one was made bigger than the other.

The researchers then rigged the models with cameras andsubmerged themto record behaviourunderwater.

As expected, Bult found that size does matter. The male turtles approached and tried to mate with the larger female replica.

Bultbelieves male turtles are attracted to larger femalesto increase their offspring's chance of survival, as there's a correlation between the size of a mother turtle and her hatchlings.

You can watch the turtle behaviour abovein a video Bultposted to YouTube.