The strongest male is honored to give genes. It is important for female- provides that her babies will be possibly the healthiest
Is there any reason for that mating ball of males and one female other than that they
all happened to be in the same place?
How big was your female, if she wasn't huge this may be a possible theory?
Mark Barber wrote:Luiselli speculates that the incidence of mating balls in grass snakes may be related to climatic factors and might be highest in the north. At high latitudes the cold climate permits only a relatively short mating season. As not all females emerge from hibernation at the same time it is likely that the sex ratio will be skewed towards males and this will increase competition for females, and thereby likelihood of mating balls.
So in the UK as we have a long mating period, at any one time there will be less females compared to males, thus we should have more mating balls?
Oddly, though, mating balls have rarely been observed in British snakes.
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