815 Sentences With "sexually mature" | Random Sentence Generator

Moreover, these larvae went on to develop into healthy, sexually mature adults.

Some abusers' victims are sexually mature, though below the age of consent.

The plants are burning before they're sexually mature and have grown those capsules.

In sexually mature birds, the courtship song did not elicit any neural response.

Since 2011, they haven't observed many sexually mature females in the company of calves.

Young spiders continued to return until they were 60 days old, and thus sexually mature.

Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 503 years old who is sexually mature.

That means Chinese people are sexually mature for six years before being allowed to marry.

Although they did not carry the social responsibilities of adults, they were considered sexually mature.

Christine: My first boyfriend had been in boarding school in England and was very sexually mature.

Interestingly, once the spiderlings became sexually mature, only the daughters were allowed back into the nest.

Previous studies had determined that the sharks become sexually mature when they are about 13 feet long.

Even if small animals survive their early years, it may take them longer to become sexually mature.

It might be an image of a sexually mature teenager that any normal adult would find attractive.

They live in troops, with each troop consisting of infants, sub-adults, sexually mature adults, and the elderly.

She will enter a breeding program when she reaches a sexually mature age, typically between 5 and 6 years old.

Female olms only reproduce once every six years and it takes them until the age of 15 to become sexually mature.

Females become sexually mature at about three months and, with a gestation period of just three weeks, produce multiple broods annually.

None of the newer monkeys are sexually mature yet, so the zoo will have to wait to test their matchmaking skills.

Importantly, only males were observed to collect and present the sponges, and they only did so in the presence of sexually mature females.

While Bd can multiply in a matter of days, it can take many months for a frog to develop into a sexually mature adult.

Almost all of the lined-up trilobites were sexually mature, which could be evidence that the animals were traveling en masse to spawning grounds.

Expectations are also high that the two will have babies soon, even though Dr. Ochs warned that Meng Meng is not yet sexually mature.

As New York Magazine notes, he's made other statements defending sex with minors, while asserting that an attraction to "sexually mature" 13-year-olds was not pedophilia.

"We are very focused in some certain areas in the northern Atlantic where we have identified that these sexually mature females to occur quite often," Nielsen told me.

Women also tweeted about how they faced discrimination in math and science classes, or dress codes that shamed and objectified their bodies even before they were sexually mature.

When researchers look only at the education that girls receive before they become sexually mature, they still find that more years in school means fewer babies later in life.

The most prominent part of Spears's personal brand has always been that she is like a virgin, vacillating absolutely inconsistently between performing as an adolescent girl and as a sexually mature woman.

Bushnell says it may have to do with their very slow metabolic rate — the sharks grow super slowly, about half an inch a year, and aren't sexually mature until they're about 150 years old.

They were also deliberately selected to be over two or three years old, when wolves become sexually mature enough to breed, but not too old, so that they have a shot of surviving multiple breeding seasons.

"Our findings demonstrate that mammal-like milk provisioning and parental care for sexually mature offspring have also evolved in invertebrates," said first author Zhanqi Chen, a spider expert at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, in a statement.

"The expected pregnancy rate for sexually mature females in 'corn crib' style housing is approximately 80 percent per breeding season, from unpublished data kept for colony management purposes over the past 40 years," the study states.

Because the age when people become sexually mature and the age when people lose their virginity are genetically interconnected, today's study implies that having sex at a young age could have consequences on your education and health.

Most are long-lived species that breed slowly: The common dolphins of the Bay of Biscay become sexually mature at age 8 and can live up to 25 years, and females give birth every three years on average.

Risk, behavior and puberty People's genes do not directly decide actions such as losing virginity, but they do determine aspects of life that could influence when someone chooses to have sex, such as when they reach puberty and become sexually mature.

Minke whales can take about up to eight years to become sexually mature, and females normally are pregnant with a single calf for nearly a year, making it particularly disruptive to hunt them because the species invests so much energy and effort to raise calves to adulthood.

Sexually mature males have a significantly smaller snout-vent length than sexually mature females.

Female bats become sexually mature at the age of three years while males are sexually mature at two years. Ransome, R.D. 1995. Some females may not breed until their fifth year.Racey, P. 1982.

Here they undergo two successive molts to become sexually mature individuals.

This frog may become sexually mature in five to seven months.

This fish becomes sexually mature at about one year of age.

Example of a sexually mature male Sexually mature males differ from females and juveniles in appearance, and this may be the result of sexual selection. The males have longer and deeper heads, and longer limbs when compared to females. Females are also generally a little bit shorter in length than males. Sexually mature males also display different coloration from females or juveniles.

Males become sexually mature at 10–11 months, while females are sexually mature at the age of 2–3 weeks whilst still blind, deaf and hairless, and are usually mated with adult males before being weaned.

They become sexually mature at about a year and probably live three years.

Sexually mature females bear live young in broods of as many as 25.

Sexually mature females of L. taylori usually lay 2 eggs at a time.

These grow rapidly and are sexually mature at the age of six weeks.

Females are sexually mature at about 5 years old. Males are sexually mature at about 5–7 years old. Mating may occur throughout the year but peaks in the month of October. This approximates gestation at 6–7 months in length.

E. clavigera is predominantly a scavenger and feeds on dead or damaged invertebrates such as barnacles and mussels. Sexually mature individuals have been observed during July and August, while sexually mature E. viridis are generally seen between February and May.

After two years of age, the tarsier is sexually mature and able to reproduce.

When they become sexually mature, they are males; later on they transform into females.

Sexually mature females of L. gansi lay one egg per clutch in loose soil.

They become sexually mature at the age of one and a half or two years.

Sexually mature females of C. guentheri give birth to an average of three live young.

Sexually mature females of A. deraniyagalae produce about 2 to 4 eggs at a time.

Females sexually mature between 17 and 28 months, while males mature at around 25 months.

When threatened they can appear black.Shark-references.com: Lists/literature by V.A. VanovOceanario.pt: Raja clavata In sexually mature fish, some of the spines are thickened with button-like bases (known as bucklers). These are particularly well developed on the tails and backs of sexually mature females.

By three to four weeks of age, the young are independent and are soon sexually mature.

At two years of age, the offspring are sexually mature and are abandoned by the mother.

A sexually mature female of D. steindachneri will lay one to two eggs during one year.

The fish can reach the age of twenty. It becomes sexually mature at three or four.

Masked shrews become sexually mature at two months, but wait until their first spring to breed.

The Western hooknose snake is oviparous. Sexually mature females may lay up to 5 eggs in June.

Weaning takes place six or seven weeks later and the juvenile becomes sexually mature the following year.

Both males and females are sexually mature by the start of the first breeding season after birth.

U Cal Press, Berkeley, Cal., USA. The spinner dolphin has a 10-month gestation period, and mothers nurse their young for one to two years. Females are sexually mature at four to seven years, with three-year calving intervals, while males are sexually mature at seven to 10 years.

The young birds fledge after about two weeks in the nest. They are sexually mature in one year.

The eggs hatch in eight to 14 weeks. The lizard is sexually mature at two years of age.

They are sexually mature around seven months old, but do not breed until the year after their birth.

Most dogs are sexually mature by 1 year old, which corresponds to perhaps 13 years old in humans.

Sexually mature female Persian ratsnakes lay clutches of 4-8 eggs, which hatch after 45–55 days of incubation.

They are weaned at around three weeks, and females may be sexually mature at just 40 to 50 days old.

Females become sexually mature at two years of age, while males will acquire sexual maturity at three years of age.

A second litter may be born when circumstances permit, and the young become sexually mature at 11 months of age.

Sceloporus grammicus is viviparous. Litter size varies between 2 and 12. Females become sexually mature between in snout–vent length.

The young are produced singly at any time of the year and become sexually mature at about a year old.

Most cetaceans sexually mature at seven to 10 years. An exception to this is the La Plata dolphin, which is sexually mature at two years, but lives only to about 20. The sperm whale reaches sexual maturity within about 20 years and a lifespan between 50 and 100 years. For most species, reproduction is seasonal.

Females become sexually mature at 2½ years, and males at 4 to 5 years. Sexually mature females leave the natal group, but males can remain with their natal group their entire life. The Central American squirrel monkey can live for more than 15 years. The Central American squirrel monkey population declined precipitously after the 1970s.

B. tyroni sexually mature males are strongly responsive to specific scents that may be associated with mating, or a cue-lure. A specific cue-lure, Willson's lure, was found to be incredibly effective at attracting sexually mature B. tyroni males. When combined with insecticides, artificially developed cue lures may be an effective elimination method of sexually mature males. While extensive research has suggested this is an effective strategy in other fly species, very few controlled experiments have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of the male annihilation technique in B. tyroni.

Jaguarundis become sexually mature at one to three years of age. Lifespan up to 15 years has been recorded in captivity.

High egg concentrations will result in more male than female ratios as well as vice versa. It does not mean that the eggs will all become one sex but rather have a higher ratio in one of the two sexes present. Mucous cells within epidermis are found in both the non-sexually mature and sexually mature adult stages.

They exhibit rapid growth; at around three weeks old, the young start flying, begin the weaning process, and are of a similar size to adults in forearm length but not weight. The young are totally weaned by 26 days old. Females may become sexually mature in the first year of life. Males become sexually mature in their second year.

Males have been reported to be sexually mature at or long, and females at long. Silvertip sharks often behave boldly towards divers.

88; accessed May 29, 2011. The egg mass is orange, and adheres to the bottom. Individuals are sexually mature after one year.

Females are sexually mature at 9–10 weeks old, but males mature later. They have a lifespan of up to 2 years.

P. bocagei is oviparous. Sexually mature females lay 2-4 clutches of eggs each year. Clutch size varies from 2 to 9 eggs.

Breeding of sexually mature A. gularis occurs in the spring, and a clutch of 1-5 eggs is laid in the early summer.

They metamorphose seven months later at SVL. Males become sexually mature between SVL and females SVL. The largest males and females are SVL.

In late January to early February, female seals give birth to one pup each. Similar to other ringed seals, these pups are born with white pelages and weigh about 5 kg. Their white coats are molted at around three weeks to a month. Male pups become sexually mature after six to seven years, whereas female pups sexually mature after five to seven years.

In Northern and Eastern Europe, spiders reach sexual maturity only in June, while in Southern Europe, they become sexually mature in April. Nursery web spiders have a one-year annual cycle in southern Europe. They grow in summer, hibernate in winter, reach adulthood in spring, and reproduce and then die in autumn. Their offspring are sexually mature in the following spring.

In central Washington on the other hand, most males are sexually mature by the end of their first year and females become sexually mature by the middle of their second year. The longevity of the Oregon spotted frog is not well studied, but it is thought that these frogs have a relatively short life, generally living between two and five years.

A population of Mertensia ovum in the central Baltic Sea have become paedogenetic, and consist solely of sexually mature larvae less than 1.6 mm.

The mother will give birth to one offspring weighing 500 g to 720 g. Females are sexually mature at about four years of age.

Males and females sexually mature at around long respectively; the fact that females mature at a smaller size than males is unusual among sharks.

Females in the northwestern range may produce two clutches. The young become sexually mature in the first (southern range) or second (northern range) year.

The bird's full coloration is not seen until they are sexually mature at about two years of age. Their lifespan is about 30 years.

Pacas are sexually mature at about 1 year. A paca usually lives up to 13 years. The lowland paca can carry leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis.

It is sexually mature when it is in carapace length. Fecundity is much reduced in individuals which are infested with a parasitic echinostome fluke.

Zander has a maximum lifespan of 17 year and they are sexually mature at 3-10 years old, with 4 years old being typical.

Females become sexually mature at the age of two years. After one month of gestation they give birth to litters of two to 11 young.

They sexually mature in about a year.Faivovich, J. (1994). La distribución del género Lepidobatrachus (Budgett, 1899) (Leptodactylidae: Ceratophryinae). Acta Zoologica Lilloana, 43(1), 137-174.

Adults produce up to 100 eggs. Larvae are pelagic. They are sexually mature at 20 days old. Life span is less than one year usually.

Breed, Bill and Ford, Fred. Native Mice and Rats. CSIRO Publishing, 2008. p. 82 , They are sexually mature at 5 to 6 months of age.

Males have also been observed to bite females during courtship. Young are long directly after hatching and males become sexually mature when they reach roughly .

Female dorsal fins are slightly larger than the male's and are located lower on the back. The eyes of the lined seahorse can concentrate together, or they can operate independently of one another. The lined seahorse may be considered sexually mature as early as four months; however, it is typically about eight months. The minimum size of a sexually mature lined seahorse is 5.6 cm.

In some species, adults reach their maximum size in about five years. The purple urchin becomes sexually mature in two years and may live for twenty.

Sexually mature females lay between 6 and 20 eggs, usually at the end of the dry season in February to March. Hatchlings are in total length.

They are sexually mature at one year, but do not always breed until their second year. They can live for up to six years in captivity.

The species becomes sexually mature by 2 years for both sexes, living to at least 4 years of age and reaching more than 30 cm in length.

Atlantic menhaden usually do not become sexually mature until the end of their second year, after which they reproduce until death. A young, sexually mature female can produce roughly 38,000 eggs, while a fully mature female can produce upwards of 362,000."Other Managed Species in the South Atlantic: Atlantic Menhaden," South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. Eggs are buoyant and hatch within 2 to 3 days depending on the temperature.

Only 50% of infants survive more than six months, largely due to predation by birds. The infant remains dependent on its mother for about one year. Females give birth every 12 months, so the prior infant becomes independent at about the same time the new infant is born. Females become sexually mature at 2½ years old, while males become sexually mature at between 4 and 5 years old.

The oocytes contained in the ovary of a sexually mature female had a length of 1.0mm, when they hatch they produce planktonic paralarva. The males have short spermatophores.

The entire population remains in this state for its migration and overwintering period. This diapause period ends from mid-January through February, and they begin to sexually mature.

SeriouslyFish: Andinoacara rivulatus. Retrieved 7 May 2017. Females are sexually mature at around . As the name implies, late juvenile-phase and adult-phase specimens can be very aggressive.

Females do not become sexually mature until their second year, but can live for four to five years, while males typically do not survive beyond the age of two.

This species, T. popeiorum, is viviparous. In India, sexually mature females give birth in April and May, and the average clutch size is 10. The hatchlings are about long.

D. scabra is oviparous. In summer, a sexually mature female may lay one or two clutch of 6-25 eggs each. The eggs measure . Hatchlings are in total length.

Acanthodactylus are oviparous. The number of eggs in a clutch ranges from 3 to 7. The total length of a sexually mature adult of the genus is, on average, .

3, no. 3. Seattle: Carnivore Research Institute, Burke Museum, University of Washington. Female Asian golden cats are sexually mature between 18 and 24 months, while males mature at 24 months.

Studies have found that it takes approximately 3 years for the little tunny's gonads to reach sexual maturity. The average size of a sexually mature individual is in fork length.

Wombats are weaned after 15 months, and are sexually mature at 18 months. A group of wombats is known as a wisdom, a mob, or a colony.Common Wombat. National Geographic.

Male armadillo chasing a female to mate. The gestation period of the armadillo is 60–75 days. The armadillos become sexually mature at 9 months and produce two litters per year.

The young are sexually mature at the age of two years. Common Mergansers are known to form crèches, with single females having being observed with over 70 ducklings at one time.

Sexually mature individuals are hermaphrodites. They are broadcast spawners. The season when the organisms spawn is variable between locations. However, in Tasman Bay, the peak time is from November to March.

Like humans, llama males and females mature sexually at different rates. Females reach puberty at about 12 months old; males do not become sexually mature until around three years of age.

A. erythrurus is oviparous. The number of eggs in a clutch varies from three to seven. The average total length (including tail) of a sexually mature adult of the species is .

Sexually mature females of T. wagleri bear live young by ovoviviparity. Litter size varies from 15 to 41.Das, Indraneil (2006). A Photographic Guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Borneo.

The typical spawning period for the species throughout its range is from mid-April to early June. Only large males at least one year and 40 mm in length appear to be sexually mature and do most of the spawning. Females become sexually mature at one year of age; these individuals may be as short as 34 mm in length. However, the largest females develop the earliest mature ova and probably contribute most to the spawning effort.

They live at a maximum depth of 1,935 meters below sea level and a minimum depth of 227 meters. Like other opisthoteuthids, they occupy the benthic zone, living on or near the seafloor. These octopuses most likely prey on polychaete worms and crustaceans that live on or just above the seafloor. All females of O. agassizii become sexually mature when they reach 190 grams (6.702 oz.) and all males are sexually mature once they reach 95 g (3.351 oz.).

Sexually mature females were found between fork lengths of with half of them sexually mature at a fork length of . The maless were larger than females and their fork lengths were . These differ from site to site although the sex ratios were the same between sites, with roughly 5.5 females for every male. Off Western Australia the majority of the females were reproductively active between July and December coinciding relatively cool water temperatures and increasing daylight hours.

Immunodiagnostics (ELISA, lateral flow immunoassay, rapid immunomigration techniques) to detect heartworm antigen in the host's blood are now regularly used. They can detect occult infections, or infections without the presence of circulating microfilariae. However, these tests are limited in that they only detect the antigens released from the sexually mature female worm's reproductive tract. Therefore, false-negative results may occur during the first five to eight months of infection when the worms are not yet sexually mature.

Calves have prolonged weaning and nursing continues until juveniles are 3-4 years old. Males typically become sexually mature at around the age of 9 and females at the age of 10.

Female bears in Florida become sexually mature at three to four years of age.Garrison, E.P. 2004. Reproductive ecology, cub survival, and denning ecology of the Florida black bear. Thesis. University of Florida.

Males leave their mothers after a year and females leave after two. Bucks are generally sexually mature at 1.5 years old and begin to breed even in populations stacked with older bucks.

The females of some Tarsonemidae bear sexually mature young. If any nymphal stages are absent, then authors may disagree on which stages are present. Only the Oribatida pass through all developmental stages.

Juvenile shiners are often found in slow- moving water, particularly amongst large rocks in the middle of a stream or in flooded channels and pools. Juveniles sexually mature after their first year.

The offspring are extremely dependent on their parents and though they are sexually mature at 18 months, they typically do not mate until much later, staying with their family group until they do.

Weaned at 23 to 24 weeks, western quoll are independent at 18 weeks and are sexually mature at one year of age. The young disperse in November before taking up their own territories.

Gestation is 16–23 days. Litters are 1-13 (7 average). Young are sexually mature after 14 days. When conditions are favorable, these demographic parameters allow for a veritable explosion in population size.

They seem to be attracted to settle in areas of fine, nutrient-rich sediment but the mechanism for this discrimination is unclear. The juveniles become sexually mature in another six to twelve months.

Bearded sakis have a gestation period of 5 months and produce one young at a time. They don't become sexually mature until 4 years old and have an expected lifespan of 18 years.

The offspring usually consists of one young, which is weaned after two months and becomes sexually mature at an age of eight to twelve months. Captured bats can live up to ten years.

At around 11 to 13 years old, the males become sexually mature; females become sexually mature at about 5 to 8 years old. Narwhals do not have a dorsal fin, and their neck vertebrae are jointed like those of most other mammals, not fused as in dolphins and most whales. Found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic and Russian waters, the narwhal is a uniquely specialized Arctic predator. In winter, it feeds on benthic prey, mostly flatfish, under dense pack ice.

At this stage, the fish are still pelagic, but after a few months, they acquire their typical body shape and become bottom-dwellers. By three to four years old, the fish are sexually mature.

Brittle stars generally sexually mature in two to three years, become full grown in three to four years, and live up to 5 years. Members of Euryalina, such as Gorgonocephalus, may live much longer.

Adult Elysia chlorotica are simultaneous hermaphrodites. When sexually mature, each animal produces both sperm and eggs at the same time. However, self-fertilization is not common within this species. Instead, Elysia chlorotica cross-copulate.

The kits are fully grown by autumn, at which time the family disbands. The females are able to breed at 3–4 months of age, while males become sexually mature at 15–18 months.

They become sexually mature at 10 months. Both parents take part in raising and protecting their young. The average lifespan of a wild kit fox is 5.5 years. In captivity, they can live 12 years.

It becomes sexually mature at about 5.9 centimeters. This species is epipelagic to mesopelagic, living at depths of 90 to 820 meters, swimming at shallower depths during daylight hours. Its main food items are copepods.

Apateon were sexually mature in the larval state, with the retention by adults of traits seen in the young (neoteny). This fully aquatic animals lived in semi-permanent lakes and ponds. They fed on microorganisms.

Here it spends the winter, begging for food and being fed by the ants. When spring comes it leaves the ant nest and, now sexually mature, seeks out the nest of a red wood ant.

Mother with four-day-old juvenile Females become sexually mature at the age of six to seven years, while males become sexually mature at about 10 years old. The gestation period is around 15–16 months. The calf, which typically weighs , is weaned after about 15 months and stays with its mother for the first two to three years of its life. In the wild, the birth interval for this species is estimated to be four to five years; its natural offspring-rearing behavior is unstudied.

Spawning occurs in clear, cool streams with 1 to 3 inch gravel. A year after hatching, young ciscoes drift downstream to estuaries. The Bering cisco becomes sexually mature when it is four to nine years old.

Reproduction or shell armor – a trade off in freshwater gastropods. The Bulletin of the American Malacological Union, Inc. 46:71. Individuals of this species are often sexually mature within one year; and can live 5 years.

Male green terrors are sexually mature at and females at . Although spawning below these sizes is possible, few eggs hatch. It requires suitable breeding sites, such as flat rocks. The pair cleans the site before breeding.

They are sexually mature upon reaching weight. This fish native to the Orinoco and Amazon basins; in the Amazon, this fish is found quite upstream, in the main bed of the big tributaries with muddy bottoms.

Females reach sexual maturity after as little as three weeks, while males become sexually mature after six weeks. The lifespan is correspondingly short, with individuals living for less than a year, even in the absence of predators.

They are sexually dimorphic with the females noticeably larger than the males. Half of the males are sexually mature at fork length for males half of the females are sexually mature on attaining fork length. This is a highly fecund fish and a single female may lay 18 to 59 million eggs in a single spawining season. Off the coast of Florida spawning peaks in April and May and each female is estimated to spawn once every four to five days during the spawning season, lasting around 60 days.

Males become sexually mature about 2 days after emergence, and females become sexually mature at an age of 12 days, with plans to mate only once. Observational studies of mating interactions both in a laboratory setting and field setting noted copulation between mosquitoes occurring after sunset. Results noted that copulation depends on age of females, with insemination occurring with females of ages 30–40 hours. In both settings studied, females are capable of mating without inducing insemination, as only 1% of females contained sperm after 2 notes of potential mating.

The time it takes for newly hatched larvae to mature into full-grown adults is on average 100 days. Cooler temperatures of 21-23 °C are optimal for growth. Adults are sexually mature at one year of age.

Like related species, the Eastern Green Drake has a fully aquatic larval stage. This is followed by a phase of a flying sexually immature adult called the subimago. Finally, there is a short-lived sexually mature adult stage.

Sexually mature females of B. plumifrons lay five to fifteen eggs at a time in warm, damp sand or soil. The eggs hatch after eight to ten weeks, at which point the young emerge as fully independent lizards.

Since SMF R 4970 was not fully sexually mature whe it died, unfortunately the fully matured structure, as well as the sex of the individual and any coacal phallus that may have been present in life, are undetermined.

They leave the den after one week. At this time, the spines begin to harden. Crested porcupines reach adult weight at one to two years and are often sexually mature just before then. Breeding occurs throughout the year.

Five-week-old fry. The convict cichlid can reach sexual maturity as young as 16 weeks, though sexual maturity more commonly occurs at 6 months. Sexually mature convicts form monogamous pairs and spawn in small caves or crevices.

A shell of Bithynia tentaculata. Operculum of Bithynia tentaculata. The height of shell is usually no larger than 12–15 mm. The snail is sexually mature by the time the height of shell reaches 8 mm in size.

Bougainvillia aberrans n. sp. has holotype and paratype. Also, medusae of B. aberrans appear sexually mature and relatively short-lived for release from the hydroid. It is different from the reduced Medusa buds with its blunt marginal tentacles.

A female lionfish can produce 30,000 to 40,000 eggs every few days; lionfish become sexually mature by the time they are a year old. The regular spawning of the lionfish creates a constant pressure on the Florida Keys ecosystem.

Once hatched, young lice molt and move to tender areas of the body to feed. Nymphs tend to remain concentrated near the head region. After 10 days, the lice are sexually mature and ready to begin another life cycle.

The young are weaned at about one month of age, by which time all their permanent teeth have erupted. Females become sexually mature at just two months, although males are not fertile for six or seven months after birth.

Buša heifers become sexually mature at two years of age. The calves are very small: their birth weight is about 15 kg. The breed's fertility is between 85 and 90%. Females stay fertile until an age of twelve years.

North American river otters are polygynous. Females usually do not reproduce until two years of age, although yearlings produce offspring on occasion. Males are sexually mature at two years of age. The number of corpora lutea increases directly with age.

In favourable conditions there may be six litters during the season, each consisting of about five offspring. The gestation period is about twenty days with females becoming sexually mature by about four months and males at a slightly older age.

It has a large head and thin, fleshy lips, the lower of which is notched. It has been observed to reach 33 years of age. It becomes sexually mature between four and six years of age.USFWS. Chasmistes brevirostris Five- year Review.

Growth is proportional to food intake, not age. When starved, this anemone can stay alive for 9 months but does not grow. Urticina crassicornis is sexually mature with a diameter of 10 – 15 mm, being at least one year old.

Young are weaned by 15 days. Young gain a full, permanent set of teeth at 40 days and can fly by 50 days when their forearms are fully developed. Females are sexually mature by eight months and males by 12 months.

Geomalacus malagensis is frequent on calcareous soil, in gardens, shrubland and open forests. It seems to feed on fruits and other soft parts of plants. Sexually mature slugs are found in spring and autumn. Captured slugs were found infected with nematodes.

The Atlantic sixgill shark (Hexanchus vitulus) becomes sexually mature at around 1.40 to 1.75 meters. They do not reach lengths much greater than 180 cm. Springer, S., & Waller, R. A. (1969). Hexanchus vitulus, a new sixgill shark from the Bahamas.

The growth of arms occurs in a clockwise pattern when viewing the animal aborally, the side containing the buttocks of the organism. The sea star will become sexually mature upon reaching size of about 5 to 8 cm in diameter.

Among the small "Bryde's whale" caught 40 mi off Shionomisaki, Wakayama Prefecture, in June 1976, were two sexually mature females of 7.9 m (25.9 ft) and 8.5 m (27.9 ft), both of which are thought to likely be Omura's whale.

A single female's eggs will be fertilised by the sperm of several (up to 7) males. This species becomes sexually mature at 3 or 4 years of age. It is long-lived, and can get up to 14 years old.

They are considered sexually mature by 7.4 cm. Breeding males have a pinkish tint over most of their body and small bumps or tubercles on their head. In comparison with Notropis, the common shiner's head, eyes, and mouth are large.

As herbivores, blackbuck graze on low grasses, occasionally browsing, as well. Females become sexually mature at 8 months old, but mate no earlier than 2 years. Males mature later, at 1 1/2 years. Mating takes place throughout the year.

This idea, proposed by Otto Bütschli, suggests that metazoa are derived from a planula; that is, the larva of certain cnidaria. Under this hypothesis, the larva became sexually mature through paedomorphosis, so could reproduce without passing through a sessile phase.

Males have been observed to be most attracted to females during the middle of the day when the temperature is hottest. Theories are that the female pheromones are most volatile in the heat and that also the male, as a thermophilic insect, is most active. Instead of just observing them, sexually mature males approach sexually mature females when they see them, but due to the physical superiority of the females, males of M. religiosa face certain challenges in doing so. When a female spots a male, she is very likely to attack and kill him (see also: Sexual cannibalism).

The pupal stage is temperature dependent with warm weather favoring growth. Depending on the temperature, the pupal stage can last anywhere from 1 week to 2 months. The males become sexually mature after 24 hours of leaving their puparium (the hardened shell the pupae mature in), while females take about 6–7 days to become fully sexually mature. If the weather is tropical (29 °C or 84.2 °F), the entire life cycle will last about 24 days; however, at cooler temperatures (below 22 °C or 71.6 °F), the life cycle can take 2–3 months to complete.

A. affinis in copula. Adults emerge in May and are on the wing until September. After emergence the immature adults move away from water and spend a time feeding and becoming sexually mature. This period will last 10 days to many weeks.

Most young by day 19 are able to consume solid food and are sexually mature as soon as 4 weeks. Pallas’s pikas reproduce during the summer months. They have an average of 2.7 litters per year, each with an average of 5 young.

They are able to breed again almost immediately, and can therefore give birth every 11 months under ideal circumstances. Young are sexually mature by 18 to 24 months of age. Fringe-eared oryxes have lived for up to 22 years in captivity.

Sepia hierredda starts to spawn early in the year, in February and this continues into September. They have a lifespan of 24 months. Migrations of this species have been recorded off West Africa. Females become sexually mature at a mantle length of 130mm.

Breeding takes place between February and April, when the water levels are highest. Eggs are brooded in the females' gill cavity. After hatching, the females care for the young for 4-5 months. Individuals become sexually mature at 3-4 years of age.

Males and females become sexually mature around two- to three-and-a-half years old, though some do not have their first offspring until they are six. Hybrids have been known to occur with some species. One is P. verreauxi.Taylor, L. (2008).

The rest remain in pupal cells. Adult beetles emerge from pupation and spend a variable time of their life maturing, and eventually oviposit. Sexually mature adults or imagos of Thanasiumus overwinter inside the wood-borer-infested trees and oviposit during the spring.

When Slenderhead darters hatch, they are around 19 millimeters in length. There is continual growth during the first year, with one year old individuals averaging 46 millimeters. There is little influence of sex on size. Individuals will become sexually mature after one year.

White-tailed antelope squirrels' reproductive receptiveness in females and reproductive capability in males peaks in early spring. It only takes the squirrels one year to become sexually mature and begin reproducing; typically, antelope ground squirrels will produce one large litter per year.

This species becomes sexually mature at 4 years of age, with a standard length of . It is long-lived, and can get up to 16 years old. Abundant in its range, the Ebro Barbel not considered a threatened species by the IUCN.

Magdalena River turtles are iteroparous. Males sexually mature at 3–4 years old, while females mature at 5–6 years old. Females nest in the sandy riverbanks that result from areas of shallow water. There are two nesting seasons: December–January and June–July.

The female (and the male in the willow grouse) stays with them and protects them until their first autumn, when they reach their mature weights (except in the male capercaillies). They are sexually mature the following spring, but often do not mate until later years.

Both sexes become sexually mature by the time they are one year old. Females enter oestrus lasting for about five days, from January to March. In males, spermatogenesis occurs mainly in February and March. In southern Turkmenistan, mating occurs from January to early February.

The front wings are vestigial and reduced to pad-like structures. Adults grow to long and wide. Bed bugs have five immature nymph life stages and a final sexually mature adult stage. They shed their skins through ecdysis at each stage, discarding their outer exoskeleton.

Territories are marked with dung. A herbivore, the royal antelope prefers small quantities of fresh foliage and shoots; fruits and fungi may be taken occasionally. Like other neotragines, the royal antelope is monogamous. Both sexes can become sexually mature by as early as six months.

B. albertisii is oviparous. A sexually mature female may lay a clutch of about a dozen eggs. The eggs stick together in a compact pile, and the female coils around them. The hatchlings emerge after about two months of incubation and are about in length.

Fillies are sexually mature by age two and are sometimes bred at that age, but generally should not be bred until they have stopped growing, usually by age four or five.Ensminger, M. E. Horses and Horsemanship: Animal Agriculture Series. Sixth Edition. Interstate Publishers, 1990. p.

When reared in the laboratory, incubation takes about nine months at a temperature of and the emerging juveniles are about long. The young grow fast and are sexually mature at three months. Some reports say that this chameleon hibernates, burying itself in leaves during the winter months.

The young are precocial and can move about within a few hours of birth. Their body armour does not harden until they are a few weeks old and they are weaned about the same time. They become sexually mature at between six months and one year.

Male lesser mouse-tailed bats mature at sixteen to seventeen months of age. Female bats become sexually mature at nine months of age and are monestrous i.e. they have one oestrus cycle per year. The mating season is generally in the months of February to April.

They rear their young alone. Common genet females become sexually mature at the age of two years. Once copulation has occurred, the gestation period lasts for 10 to 11 weeks. They are diestrous and give birth twice a year, during spring and late summer to autumn.

The Natal shyshark is rarer than the puffadder shyshark and little is known of its habits. Males are sexually mature at around long, and females at long. The shysharks are so named because they curl into a ring and cover their eyes with their tails when threatened.

Some coastal giant salamander larvae continue to grow into adults and become sexually mature without losing their external gills. This process is called neoteny. Neoteny is particularly common in the British Columbia populations. Adult-sized neotenes have a uniform brown coloring on their heads, sides, and backs.

Also the teeth are placed side by side, are weakly attached to the jaw and are primarily used for cutting leaves. Sexually mature male of Tometes differ from females by an additional anal-fin lobe, an elongated dorsal fin or a red pattern on the body.

Males become sexually mature before females. They are on the hunt for a suitable partner earlier on. During male to female interactions, skittering is one of the main ways to attract a female. Females tended to be drawn to the level of excitement the males displayed.

While O. agassizii exists across a wide depth range, heavier octopuses generally live 700 meters or more from the ocean's surface. As age and sexual maturity correlate with weight in this species, this means octopuses at a greater depth are more likely to be sexually mature.

E. rathbunae exhibits an extreme form of sexual dimorphism, with tiny neotenous males attaching themselves to the female's appendages, "thus carrying the tendency for small males in this genus almost to the verge of parasitism". Sexually mature females are typically in carapace length, while males are only .

They live with their mothers in nests composed of grass, bark, and similar materials, often located in relatively inaccessible crevices or ledges. Allegheny woodrats become sexually mature at three to four months of age, and, in the wild, have been known to live up to 58 months.

This clam becomes sexually mature at the age of a few months. A single female can produce between 45,000 and 220,000 eggs. These are fertilised externally and spend about 18 days as planktonic veliger larvae which can disperse to other areas, before settling on the seabed.

Under dissection, sexually mature female deacon rockfish also have a small pink or cream colored ovary, whereas mature female blue rockfish have a large orange ovary. The shape of sagittal otoliths has been found to subtly differ between males and females, which may indicate secondary sexual dimorphism.

Calabaria reinhardtii is oviparous, with sexually mature females laying eggs. The eggs are relatively large, weighing as much as 50 g (2 oz) each. Usually, only one or two eggs are laid, rarely three. Nevertheless, the eggs may represent up to half of the female's body weight.

This is the list of the normal flora that are found in the lower reproductive tract of sexually mature women who exhibit no symptoms of illness and who are not immunocompromised. Lactobacilli predominate. These organisms protect against infection. Vaginal microbiota composition may have a genetic component.

This species lives in small schools in deep water, but spawns in shallow water in the tributaries in April–May. The eggs are laid among weeds or over gravel, and hatch in about 10 days. They become sexually mature in 3–5 years. Resilience of this species is low.

Young sable antelope are weaned at around 8 months and will become sexually mature at between 2 and 3 years. As the calf develops, its coat will darken and it will achieve its status within the herd. The life span of a giant sable antelope is around 17 years.

The spotless smooth-hound is viviparous. Males become sexually mature at a length of between and females at . Litter size varies between about five and sixteen pups which are nourished by yolk sac placentas. The gestation period is about ten months and the pups measure about at birth.

Most are considered sexually mature after one year, but often the size of a fish indicates its maturity rather than time. Males usually grow faster than females. Different habitat conditions also reflect the lifespan of the warmouth, which varies from three to eight years.Gatz, A.J., Jr.; S.M. Adams. 1994.

Females become sexually mature at the age of five years. They experience sexual swelling, which involves the genitals becoming pink or reddened. At one site, matings largely take place between February and November, while births occur between March and May. Copulations tend to last for half a minute.

Milne-Edwards's sifakas become sexually mature at 2 or 3 years or age. Milne-Edwards's sifakas have one mating season annually during the austral summer in the months of December and January. Females give birth during the austral winter months of May and July after a 179-day gestation.

The Christmas darter's biology is largely unknown. It likely reproduces in March and April. Individuals become sexually mature by the end of their first year of life and have a maximum lifespan of two years. Its diet consists primarily of aquatic insects, though also includes other aquatic invertebrates.

Contracaecum is genus of parasitic nematodes from the family Anisakidae. These nematodes are parasites of warm-blooded, fish eating animals, i.e. mammals and birds, as sexually mature adults. The eggs and the successive stages of their larvae use invertebrates and increasing size classes of fishes as intermediate hosts.

Adult beetles feed on leaves of broadleaved trees. They are mainly associated with beech, birch, alder, hawthorn, oaks, elm and hazel. Overwintering takes place in the larval stage, as development is completed in the spring. The sexually mature beetles (imago) can be found in the middle of summer.

Both sexes become sexually mature at 10 to 14 months. A seasonal breeder, the time when mating occurs varies geographically. Mating may peak in the rainy season (August to September). When a female enters oestrus (which lasts for four to six days), it seeks the company of males.

Falco sparverius - MHNT A young bird American kestrels are sexually mature by their first spring. In migratory populations, the males arrive at the breeding ground before females, then the female selects a mate. Pair bonds are strong, often permanent. Pairs usually use previous nesting sites in consecutive years.

They tend to bask in a group during the day, dispersing at night to feed. Females become sexually mature when about long and males at about . Eggs are laid about 14 days after mating. In the northern population, breeding takes place during the dry season between August and October.

At this point they are sexually mature and will begin the cycle over again. Although there is variability between the species of this genus, average longevity of life is estimated at 6 years of age for garden eels with the range spanning from 4 years to 10 years.

Young hawks leave the nest around 50–60 days after hatching. Juvenile hawks will not enter the territorial breeding areas until they reach the age of three, becoming sexually mature. Although these birds are generally fearless, they will abandon their nest if it has been tampered with by humans.

D. aulica, like all species in the genus Dipsadoboa, is oviparous. In midsummer sexually mature females lay 7-8 eggs. The eggs measure on average 25.5 x 11.5 mm (about 1 x 0.5 inch). Hatchlings measure on average 18 cm (about 7 inches) in total length (including tail).

Adults emerge and spend a day or two finishing maturity. Adults of C. hominivorax breed only once in their lifetimes. Sexually mature adults breed 3–4 days after emerging from the pupa. Males mature rapidly, and spend their time waiting and eating nearby vegetation and the nectar of flowers.

Encyclopedia of Life The young grow hair at around three weeks, open their eyes about a week later, and are weaned at eight weeks Gray short-tailed opossums are sexually mature at five to six months of age, and live for up to forty-nine months in captivity.

Once fertilized, the eggs of the Oregon spotted frog begin to enter the larval stage of their development very quickly. The larvae then hatch into tadpoles in 18–30 days and do not metamorphosize until 110–130 days after hatching in British Columbia, and potentially as short as 95 days in Oregon. After the transformation from a tadpole into a juvenile frog, the juveniles may remain around the breeding ponds for a period of time, although their emigration patterns are unknown. Once the Oregon spotted frog has reached adulthood, in British Columbia the males can become sexually mature within their second year and females are thought to become sexually mature in either their second or third year.

In the third year of life, this species becomes sexually mature. Highfin carpsuckers breed when temperatures are around . Highfins generally spawn from April through June, and in some states, eggs have been found until late August. They only breed once a year, not again in the fall like some species.

An Indian palm squirrel nest The gestation period is 34 days; breeding takes place in grass nests during the autumn. Litters of two or three are common, and average 2.75. The young are weaned after about 10 weeks and are sexually mature at 9 months. Adult weight is 100 g.

They become sexually mature faster and produce larger broods in warm (approximately 27 °C) water that provides an overabundance of food. The Amazon molly has been reproducing asexually for about 100,000-200,000 years. This is about 500,000 generations of Amazon molly. Asexual lineages typically go extinct after 10.0-100.0 generations.

Histological observations confirm anatomical evidence of neoteny in branchiosaurids. Skeletochronological analysis allows for the identification of sexual maturity (i.e. when the distance between lines of arrested growth (LAGs) suddenly decreases). In Apateon specimens determined to be sexually mature, the cartilaginous Katschenko's line can be observed when perichondral ossification is complete.

Mature L. variegatus specimens can easily be told apart by a number of genital characters, but as few of the species in the genus ever become sexually mature, it is often difficult to do so. A physical description of L. variegatus is, to a large extent, valid for the entire genus.

R. flavipes also molts into nymphs, which are the precursors of winged adult termites called alates which are sexually mature. Nymphal termites are non terminal and can revert to the worker stage. These reverted nymphs are called pseudergates. Nymphs and workers can also develop into secondary and tertiary neotenic reproductives respectively.

Infants become mobile at 2 to 5 weeks, and begin eating solid food at 4 to 7 weeks. They are independent at 10 to 18 weeks and are fully weaned at 15 to 25 weeks. Geoffroy's tamarin becomes sexually mature at about 2 years, and can live up to 13 years.

Female muntjacs (known as "does") become sexually mature within the first year of life.Chapman, Norma G., M. Furlong, and S. Harris. "Reproductive strategies and the influence of date of birth on growth and sexual development of an aseasonally‐breeding ungulate: Reeves' muntjac (Muntiacus reevesi)." Journal of Zoology 241.3 (1997): 551-570.

Similar fish are the mutton snapper, Lutjanus analis, and the mangrove snapper, L. griseus. This species can reach a length of , though most do not exceed . The greatest recorded weight for this species is . The lane snapper spawns March through September; it is sexually mature at 6 in (15 cm).

The grasshopper becomes sexually mature at 3 to 4 months of age. Any stage of its life cycle can be seen at any time of the year, but the adult is less active during the winter and fall. Mating usually occurs on warm nights in summer, and often around bright lights.

It can grow to tall with a base diameter of and a similar tentacle span. M. senile var. pallidus is much smaller, seldom exceeding base diameter, and has a much less convoluted disc with fewer than 200 tentacles. It seems to be a dwarf race, becoming sexually mature while still small.

Individual snails are either male or female. Eggs are laid in early spring and hatch in about 2 weeks. Snails apparently become sexually mature in their first year, but, in some cases, females may not lay eggs until their second year. Some elimia species may live as long as 5 years.

Factors affecting dung quality include water content, nutritional quality, parasites, and drugs or other chemicals given to the animal. Life stages of "S. stercoraria" Yellow dung flies are anautogenous. To become sexually mature and produce viable eggs or sperm, they must feed on prey to acquire sufficient proteins and lipids.

Reproduction has only been observed in captivity so far. Sexually mature males have swollen cloacas, brighter skin color, two lines at the side of the tail, and slightly curled fins. No such changes have been observed in the females. The male can start courtship even without the presence of a female.

Larger females may have larger litters.Fleming, 1971, p. 41 Animals become sexually mature when less than two months old; in Fleming's study, some females in juvenile fur, probably less than 50 days old, were already pregnant.Fleming, 1971, p. 43 The oldest specimen Fleming observed was nine months old;Fleming, 1971, p.

Other fish in the habitat include the common creek chub (Semotilus atromaculatus), white sucker (Catostomus commersoni), stoneroller (Campostoma anomalum), and stripetail darter (Etheostoma kennicotti). The dace eats algae and sometimes insects. It lives 2–3 years and becomes sexually mature in its first year.Eisenhour, D. J. and R. M. Strange. (1998).

The terminal males are aggressive and territorial. Females are sexually mature at one year of age and spawn in May through July, probably producing multiple clutches. The yellow-orange eggs are up to 1.2 millimeters wide and are adhesive on the substrate. Spawning activity has not been observed in nature.

Oxynoemacheilus bureschi is nocturnal and feeds on benthic invertebrates, particularly worms and insect larvae. The breeding season runs from May to July and the spawning takes place among stones, gravels and plants in shallow running water. The fish are sexually mature once they have attained a length of 5 cm.

Young females remain in their mother's territory until they are sexually mature. Mating may last up to an hour and is preceded by the marking of the substrate with urine by both sexes. The females carry the normally single young in their mouths for 45 days. Breeding occurs throughout the year.

Other madtoms, such as the least madtom (Noturus hildebrandi), are not sexually mature until one year of age. Noturus hildebrandi and other madtoms breed in the late spring to early summer. Smoky madtoms usually selected nesting sites located under flat rocks. In smoky madtoms, mayfly nymphs comprised a significant chunk of their diet.

The cycle repeats itself when the parasite becomes sexually mature and sheds eggs through the feces of the bird to the external environment. If a larger fish, amphibian, or reptile feeds on the infected fish before the wading bird does, it becomes a paratenic hosts until fed on by the definitive host.

Cub in Cottbus Zoo Amur leopards become sexually mature at the age of 2–3 years. They are able to reproduce up to 10–15 years of age. Estrus lasts 12–18 days, and in exceptional cases up to 25 days. Gestation lasts 90–105 days, and usually between 92 and 95 days.

Lygus wagneri has two generations per year. It has an incomplete metamorphosis, the transition from newly hatched larvae to the sexually mature insects gradually goes through several stages. It is a polyphagous species, mainly feeding on nectar of Tanacetum vulgare and on juices of Asteraceae, Urtica dioica, Rumex obtusifolius, Hieracium and Hypericum.

There is no specific breeding season, though 70% of pademelon births seem to occur around the beginning of winter. Gestation for the female is 30 days. The young are in the pouch for about 6 months thereafter, and are weaned at around 8 months. Joeys are sexually mature at 14–15 months.

This is the case in duikers and other small bovids. The time taken for the attainment of sexual maturity by either sex varies broadly among bovids. Sexual maturity may even precede or follow mating. For instance, the impala males, though sexually mature by a year, can mate only after four years of age.

A female okapi stands next to her calf at Antwerp Zoo. Female okapis become sexually mature at about one-and-a-half years old, while males reach maturity after two years. Rut in males and estrous in females does not depend on the season. In captivity, estrous cycles recur every 15 days.

Some California giant salamander larvae continue to grow into adults and become sexually mature without losing their external gills. This process is called neoteny. Adult-sized neotenes have a uniform brown coloring on their heads, sides, and backs and retained external gills which allow them to live in perennial streams as aquatic adults.

Female crows are considered sexually mature at about 2 or 3 years of age and males at 4 years."NatureServe Explorer: Species Name Criteria – All Species – Scientific or Informal Taxonomy, Species – Informal Names." NatureServe Explorer: Species Name Criteria – All Species – Scientific or Informal Taxonomy, Species – Informal Names. NatureServe. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.

Their eyes open at fifteen to eighteen days and they are fully weaned at about seven weeks. Females can produce two or three litters a year. The juveniles disperse after weaning, setting up their own territories. They are sexually mature at six to eight months and their life expectancy is about three years.

Sperm are released into her reproductive system, after which she ejects the empty spermatophore and eats it. As ametabolous insects, silverfish continue to moult throughout their life, with several sexually mature instars, unlike the pterygote insects. They are relatively slow growing, and lifespans of four to up to eight years have been recorded.

The average diameter of male areolae is around . Sexually mature women have an average of , but sizes can exceed . Lactating women, and women with particularly large breasts, may have even larger areolae. A function of the specialized dermis of the areola is to protect the regular breast skin from wear, cracking, and irritation.

Spring field crickets are sexually mature from late May to early August. Males of the species attract sexually receptive females by acoustic signals, known as stridulation. This process occurs by rubbing two rigid veins on the wings against one another. One vein is a scraper (smooth surface), the other a file (rough surface).

T tetraporophora are oviparous meaning they lay eggs. Breeding occurs between early spring and mid autumn. Females become sexually mature at a Mean Snout Vent Length(SVL) around 46mm and males are sexually active at about 42mm SVL. Mature females can range from 46 to 72mm SVL the average been around 58mm.

The rutting season occurs from August through to October. Bulls aged 4–6 years, though sexually mature, are prevented from mating by older bulls. Cows usually have a gestation period of 264 days, and typically give birth to one calf at a time. On average, male calves weigh at birth, and females .

Pacific jumping mouse sexually mature the year after they are born. Males become sexually active in May or June, which is when females are also fertile. Their gestation period lasts about 18–23 days and give birth in July or August. Each litter consist of about 4-8 young, which are weaned after 4 weeks.

American Midland Naturalist 126.1:103-110. The eggs hatch in 5–6 days and the larvae grows to become a 19mm long juvenile in about 57 days. At two years the river chub is 95-110mm and sexually mature. Its maximum life span is 5 years and it can grow up to 33 cm.

These fish are sexually mature by about two to three years of age. Spawning occurs from mid-April to early May in water 12-14 °C (54-58 degrees Fahrenheit). Each female may produce from 200 to 650 eggs. The eggs are adhesive to surfaces and found on the bottom of the stream or pool.

Turkish hamsters are weaned from their mothers after three weeks of nursing. After eight weeks of age, females are sexually mature, but males do not mature until six months of age. According to iucnredlist.org, Turkish hamsters have two to four litters of young per year, with four to 20 young per litter, averaging 10. Petwebsite.

Sun bears are polyoestrous; births occur throughout the year. Oestrus lasts five to seven days. Sun bears become sexually mature at two to four years of age. Reported lengths for pregnancies vary from 95 to 240 days; pregnancy tends to be longer in zoos in temperate climate possibly due to delay in implantation or fertilisation.

Shells are white to tan and are often covered with encrusting organisms such as bryozoans, sponges and algae. Kellet's whelks display sexual dimorphism with females being the larger individual in a mating pair. Females are generally sexually mature between 2.6 and 2.8 inches (6.5 and 7.0 centimeters), with males maturing at slightly smaller sizes.

This species is an important link in the food web in many ecosystems. It is a major pathway by which zooplankton biomass is converted to the biomass of larger fish. The bay anchovy is sexually mature when it reaches about 4 centimeters in length. It spawns in the water column in shallow and deeper waters.

After feeding off and leaving its second host, N. reddelli molts once more. The nymph then feeds on a third host. This cycle is repeated for up to seven days, after which the nymph leaves its final host and molts to reach a sexually mature form. Mating and hatching of eggs occurs away from hosts.

Males are sexually mature at eighteen months, but do not reach their full adult size for nine years. Females first breed in their second year. Males typically live for ten years in the wild, and females for up to seventeen years. They have been reported to live for up to 22 years in captivity.

Males produce large amounts of sperm, perhaps for sperm competition. Females become sexually mature by their third or fourth year and can calve each year for several consecutive years, being pregnant and lactating at the same time. The gestation of the porpoise is typically 10–11 months. Most births occur in late spring and summer.

Shortly after mating season, females will drive the male pygmy possums from the nest. The male mountain pygmy possums do not participate in parental care. Additionally, juvenile males are driven from the nest shortly after weaning. As noted in all species of Burramyids, mountain pygmy possums become sexually mature by one year of age.

In most species it lasts approximately nine to ten months. They only give birth to a single calf. Once the young are born, they won't wean until they are around six to 10 months depending on the species. Females of most species sexually mature by four years while for males it is seven years.

Bachynski & Kadlec (2003), Salgado-Ortiz et al. (2008), AnAge [2009] Some 3–4 weeks after hatching, the young are fully independent of their parents. They become sexually mature at one year of age, and attempt to breed right away. Some 55% of all American yellow warbler nestings are successful in raising at least one young.

Newborn common genets weigh . They start eating meat at around seven weeks of age, and are fully weaned at four months of age. When five months old, they are skilled in hunting on their own. When 19 months old, they start marking, and are thought to be sexually mature at the age of two years.

Stage I adult male Pinnotheres novaezelandiae Adult female New Zealand pea crabs have a soft-shelled exoskeleton. Their carapace is oval in shape, ranging in size from wide. Sexually mature adult females almost always have eggs that are tucked under their abdomens, giving them a more spherical appearance. Adult females are opaque white in colour.

Nests of the yellow-nosed cotton rat are often hidden inside tussocks of grass or other dense vegetation. They are made of grass and are in diameter. Females become sexually mature at around 45 days of age. The gestation period is about 34 days and usually two to six young are born in a litter.

C. bezziana is different from other fly species because tissue infestation can occur in the absence of necrotic tissue. The C. bezziana maggots may cause serious and permanent tissue damage. Extremely infested wounds can lead to death if not treated. The sexually mature adult imago feeds on decomposing corpses, decaying matter, excreta, and flowers.

Bald eagles are sexually mature at four or five years of age. When they are old enough to breed, they often return to the area where they were born. It is thought that bald eagles mate for life. However, if one member of a pair dies or disappears, the survivor will choose a new mate.

G. hyalelloides is the smallest freshwater amphipod in North America. Males are long, while sexually mature females are . They live in beds of Chara at the mouth of Phantom Lake Spring. G. hyalelloides makes up more than 70% of the diet of Gambusia nobilis in the Phantom Lake Spring refuge () in Jeff Davis County, Texas.

To camouflage well, it has a coppery- black coloration with an iridescent tint. The fish's large eyes, which have a diameter around 18% of the head length, are of such a large size to facilitate sight in low light. They become sexually mature at a length around . Both the eggs and the larvae are pelagic, drifting with the plankton.

Male Iberian rock lizards are often territorial in the breeding season. The eggs, laid by sexually mature females under stones or in other concealed locations, are about long. The young hatch out after about six to eight weeks and mature in about two years. A 2008 field study found females mate with males with more green on their bodies.

Both sexes become sexually mature by seven to nine months. The estrus cycle is nearly 28 days long. The time when breeding takes place varies geographically – it takes place during the dry season in Panama (late January or early February) and probably throughout the year in Nicaragua. Males have been observed pursuing the female before copulation occurs.

Females start mating at two years of age, and males too become sexually mature by that time. Gestation lasts for eight to nine months, after which a single calf is born. The lifespan of a mountain nyala is around 15 to 20 years. The typical habitat for the mountain nyala is composed of montane woodlands at an altitude of .

Birds less than a week old are more susceptible to eustrongylidosis than older birds for several reasons. First, their immune system is still developing and weak. Second, sibling competition for food is common in young birds. Finally, their growth rates become suppressed, so they tend to die before the parasite becomes sexually mature and sheds eggs.

Honduran milk snakes become sexually mature at 18 months. The females are oviparous, laying an average of 3-18 eggs per clutch in early June. The eggs incubate for approximately two months, and hatch in August or September. The hatchlings are 8 inches long and darker in color than their parents when they emerge from the eggs.

The juveniles are more diurnal, feeding on a diverse range of benthic fishes and crustaceans. It is thought to be a protogynous hermaphrodite with sexually mature females changing sex to become males later in life. They pair to spawn and spawning aggregations are found from April until June. They attain a maximum age of 17 years.

In agricultural areas they will also, as the name suggests, feed on the crops in cane plantations, making them a significant pest. Females give birth to litters of two to four young at least once a year, and more frequently in some areas. Cane rats are sexually mature and able to reproduce at 6 months of age.

Experiments have revealed that the green color generally cannot be seen in Allolobophora chlorotica that are under 2 cm in length and 4 to 6 months old. In some cases, this change in color takes places after the earthworm is sexually mature and develops a clitellum, taking up to a year for it to turn green.

Hornyhead chubs spawn from May through June. They become sexually mature at 2 to 3 years of age. Males build a cup shaped depression that they build up with pebbles that can be as large as 1–3 feet across and 6-8 inches high. Eggs and sperm are deposited in depressions in the nests and covered with gravel.

The males become sexually mature after two years and the females after three years. Breeding is in the fall and depends on the female having built up sufficient fat reserves. The gestation period last for seven to eight months and one calf is produced. Peary caribou feed on most of the available grasses, Cyperaceae (sedges), lichen and mushrooms.

The humphead wrasse is long-lived, but has a very slow breeding rate. Individuals become sexually mature at five to seven years, and are known to live for around 30 years. They are protogynous hermaphrodites, with some becoming male at about 9 years old. The factors controlling the timing of sex change are not yet known.

Globodera species are migratory semi-endoparasites. The nematode starts out as an egg and hatches into a 2nd stage juvenile. The females move to roots and set up a feeding site whereas the males do not feed. When sexually mature after the 4th molt the males fertilize the female which results in eggs and development of the cyst.

The anal fin has 26 to 30 soft rays. Female become sexually mature at about six years of age. Along with mature males they move into the deeper water of the continental shelf. Spawning takes place once a year and the young fish stay mostly in shallow water in the fiords and bays, feeding mainly on zooplankton.

The young possess a dorsal stripe along their length along with a dark lateral stripe. Males and females become sexually mature after reaching 102 mm and 100 mm, respectively, measured from tip of the snout to the posterior end of the cloaca. This size is reached at 5.5 years in males and 6.5 years in females.

He also tends to vocalize when mating. During passive copulation, the males simply flies to a female in her roost and quietly mounts her with no resistance. This species is a promiscuous breeder and both sexes copulate with multiple partners. Females become sexually mature at about 9 months, while males take even longer, at two years.

Compared to adults, young prefer and are more skilled at climbing. Females become sexually mature by 150 days, and males by 210 days. Like many chameleons and other lizards, females can store sperm after mating once so that more fertile eggs may be laid months later. Laying is taxing on females and depletes their fat reserves.

A Highly Permeable Species Boundary between Two Anadromous Fishes. Journal of Fish Biology 77.5 (2010): 1137-149. However, some record of them being landlocked suggests an ability to adapt well to their environment. They primarily live at sea on feeding grounds and migrate to their spawning grounds between April and June once they are sexually mature.

Some females may leave their natal groups, as well, although they tend to be more philopatric. If females do leave their natal groups, they do it after becoming sexually mature. Often, they migrate before or right after a mating season. Due to this, they might end up leaving their group when they are pregnant or with their immature offspring.

The young are first able to vocalise and open their eyes between 90 and 106 days of age. They leave their mother's pouch at 120–130 days. However, lactation usually continues until 180–220 days after birth but sometimes ends by 145 days. Both sexes become sexually mature in the first mating season after their birth.

The hairy dragonfly lives in ponds, lakes, fens, ditches, and canals rich in vegetation. Some plants that grow there include the common club rush, common reed, great fen sedge, and true bulrush. This dragonfly requires open and sunny areas with dense vegetation for protection. Here they are able to feed on flying insects, shelter, and grow sexually mature.

C The diet of white seabass includes fishes, especially anchovies and sardines, and squid. At times, large fish are found which have eaten only Pacific mackerel. At the minimum legal length of 28 inches, the average white seabass is about 5 years of age, weighs about 7.5 pounds and has been sexually mature for at least one spawning season.

Essentially arboreal animals, they also spend a great deal of time on the ground, foraging for food. When disturbed, Smith's bush squirrels always seek the refuge of trees. At night, territorial family groups nest together in holes in trees. Offspring become sexually mature between six and nine months old, when they are forcibly evicted by the breeding pair.

A pair of young racing pigeons, 9 days old. Pigeons are sexually mature at about six months of age. However, fanciers will often wait until the pigeon is at least a few months older before breeding. A hen bird will usually only lay two eggs in a clutch, laid every other day, after which incubation begins.

Suckling after two years may serve to maintain growth rate, body condition and reproductive ability.Sukumar, pp. 126–29. Play behaviour in calves differs between the sexes; females run or chase each other while males play-fight. The former are sexually mature by the age of nine years while the latter become mature around 14–15 years.

The Indian muntjacs are polygamous animals. Females sexually mature during their first to second year of life. These females are polyestrous, with each cycle lasting about 14 to 21 days and an estrus lasting for 2 days. The gestation period is 6-7 months and they usually bear one offspring at a time, but sometimes produce twins.

The eggs hatch in about 12 days, and the tadpoles complete metamorphosis into froglets within three or four months. The newly metamorphosed juvenile frogs must quickly find a crayfish burrow to occupy to avoid predation. Crawfish frogs become sexually mature at two to three years of age and may live up to seven years or more in the wild.

Males reach sexual maturity at and females at . Typical weight of relatively young sexually mature specimens, which often locally comprise the majority of tiger sharks encountered per game-fishing and scientific studies, is around .Pepperell, J. 1992. Trends in the distribution, species composition and size of sharks caught by gamefish anglers off southeastern Australia, 1961-1990.

Hector's dolphins are known to live to at least 22 years old, based on photo-based capture-recapture records last updated in 2006, and become sexually mature at around six to eight years of age, after which they produce one calf every two to four years. Very little is known about the Māui dolphin's reproductive physiology.

Sexually mature females of P. exsul bury 2-7 pink eggs approximately below ground in loose soil in June–August. Juveniles may have a bright blue tail, like the closely related Pholidoscelis wetmorei (blue-tailed ground lizard), but they will lose the bright blue color in their tail with age. Individuals can live more than six years.

Other larvae, especially in permanent pools and warmer climates, may not undergo metamorphosis until fully adult in size. Other populations in colder climates may not metamorphose at all, and become sexually mature while in their larval forms. Neoteny allows the species to survive even when the terrestrial environment is too harsh for the adults to thrive on land.

Females can give birth twice a year and produce about 17 joeys during their lifespan. The joey lives in its mother's pouch for six months. Once it leaves the pouch, the joey relies on its mother for milk for two more months and is fully weaned around eight months after birth. Females sexually mature after roughly 18 months.

Comparison between the female (right) and the male (left) Adults are visible from May to September. Early in the summer the oak spiders are sexually mature. Before mating, the male produces a sperm supply, that is finally transferred during mating to the female epigynum. The mating occurs during the summer, while the egg laying is done in early autumn.

Males, but not females, will attempt to initiate extra-pair mating if an opportunity arises. Females are sexually mature at six months and males at 12 months. The female gestates for 169 to 174 days and bears a single offspring. This happens up to twice a year (at the start and finish of the rainy season).

The black-capped vireo is a songbird about 12 cm (4.5 inches ) in length. Sexually mature males are olive green above and white below with faint yellow flanks. The crown and upper half of the head is black with a partial white eye-ring and lores. The iris is brownish-red and the bill is black.

Rio Grande cutthroat trout typically spawn between mid-May and mid-June. Males are sexually mature at age two; females mature at age three. They live an average of five years, but in rare cases, may survive into their teens. Rio Grande cutthroat feed opportunistically on aquatic insects and terrestrial insects that fall into the water.

Life Cycle: Megalonaias nervosa mussels are sexually mature around 8 years of age, they are late tachytictic breeders. From July to October the males are mature, while they female contain eggs from August through October (Hollandbartels, L. 1993). Megalonaias nervosa males release sperm and the females collect the sperm through the incurrent siphon. The eggs are fertilized internally.

Nippostrongylus brasiliensis is a type of nematode/gastrointestinal roundworm or nematode that infects rodents, primarily rats. This worm is a widely studied parasite due to its simple lifecycle and its ability to be used in animal models. Its lifecycle similar to the human hookworms Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale which includes five molting stages to become sexually mature.

Cotton mice are omnivorous, and eat seeds and insects. Breeding may occur throughout the year, and usually occurs in early spring and fall. They may have four litters a year of up to seven young, which are helpless and naked at birth. Cotton mice are weaned at 20–25 days, and become sexually mature around two months.

The introduced bushpig is the main predator of the angonoka tortoise; it eats the tortoises' eggs and young. It is expected to become sexually mature once reaching 15 years old. The tortoise can produce one to six eggs per clutch and up to four clutches every season. The reproductive season is from 15 January to 30 May.

The younger of the two nestlings, not uncommonly, dies from starvation. The young fledge at 45 to 50 days. After 2-3 years of being raised by and then assisting their parents, the young Magellanic woodpeckers become sexually mature. Successful breeding and pair bonds, however, do not usually occur until 4 to 5 years of age.

Courtship display in blackbuck Females become sexually mature at eight months, but mate no earlier than two years. Males mature later, at one-and-a-half years. Mating takes place throughout the year; peaks occur during spring and fall in Texas. Two peaks have been observed in India: from August to October and from March to April.

These are known as small morph adults. Other larvae, especially in ancestral pools and warmer climates, may not metamorphose until fully adult size. These large larvae are usually known as 'waterdogs', and are used extensively in the fishing bait and pet trades. Some populations may not metamorphose at all, and become sexually mature while in their larval form.

As opposed to their northern counterparts, the southern subspecies have eggs that lack filaments (adhesive chorionic fibrils) and they often deposit those eggs inside empty mussel shells. The two subspecies are also distinguished based on slight morphological and genomic differences. Most mummichogs become sexually mature when two years old, around in length. Normal lifespan is four years.

When the young are born, they weigh about 2 grams. The young dormice open their eyes at two weeks, and start eating solid food a week later. During the dependency period, the mother provides food, milk, grooming, and protection to the young. They leave the nest after about another three weeks and become sexually mature in the following year.

The trout-perch becomes sexually mature at 1–3 years of age. The spawning season is May through August. The spawning site consists of sandbars and rocks in lakes or on gravel or sand in tributary streams. Three to four males will surround a single female and release their sperm as the female is releasing her eggs.

Blue-winged teal are sexually mature after their first winter. During incubation, the drake leaves its mate and moves to suitable molting cover where it becomes flightless for a period of 3 to 4 weeks. Blue-winged teal ducklings can walk to water within 12 hours after hatching but do not fledge until 6 to 7 weeks.

A female has one or two young at a time. The young musk deer live off their mother's milk until they are about six months old and able to eat regular foods available in the wild. At 16 to 24 months old, they become sexually mature. Himalayan musk deer can live for up to 10 to 14 years.

When seen from above, a sexually mature female hamster has a trim tail line; a male's tail line bulges on both sides. This might not be very visible in all species. Male hamsters typically have very large testes in relation to their body size. Before sexual maturity occurs, it is more difficult to determine a young hamster's sex.

The klipspringer is a seasonal breeder; the time when mating occurs varies geographically. Females become sexually mature by the time they are a year old; males take slightly longer to mature. Mating behaviour has not been extensively observed. Gestation lasts around six months, following which a single calf, weighing slightly more than , is born; births peak from spring to early summer.

NOC was legally captured by Inuit hunters in 1977 as a juvenile. The name "NOC" is a play on "no-see-ums", biting midges found in Manitoba where he was caught. He lived in captivity for 22 years until his death in 1999. His human-like vocalizations were first noticed in 1984 and stopped about four years later when he became sexually mature.

The trout barb is found in rivers and streams and also in ditches and canals. In India it prefers clear streams with rocky riverbeds. It breeds during early monsoon season, in June, spawning in heavily flooded areas. It is sexually mature at around three years old, during the spawning seasons the males become brighter and the skin on their flanks becomes rougher.

The eggs of X. americanum are laid directly into the soil in water films, and are not associated with an egg mass. No molt occurs within the egg, which means that the first stage juvenile is the stage that enters the soil. Before becoming sexually mature adults, the X. americanum nematodes undergo three to four juvenile stages with a molt occurring between each.

They can live for as long as five years. The young are born hairless and helpless, and their eyes do not open until about 18 days after birth. They typically become sexually mature after the end of their first hibernation. Dormice live in small family groups, with home ranges that vary widely between species and depend on the availability of food.

The sand cat usually rests in underground dens during the day and hunts at night. It moves on average at night in search of small rodents and birds. Among the Tuareg people, it has the reputation to kill even venomous snakes efficiently. In spring, the female gives birth to two to three kittens, which become sexually mature around the age of one year.

Rosy maple moths exhibit sexual dimorphism, that is males and females have different appearances. In the case of the rosy maple moth, males have narrower and less rounded wings. Additionally, while females have simple antennae, males have bipectinate (comb-like on both sides) antennae to sense females' pheromones during mating. The moths become sexually mature at 2 to 9 months of age.

Within packs, the alpha female tends to go into heat before subordinates and actively suppresses mating attempts by other females. Males become sexually mature between the ages of 1 and 3 years. The precise start of breeding varies depending on age, social status, geographic range, and seasonal conditions. Among dingoes in captivity, the pre-estrus was observed to last 10–12 days.

Likewise, calves may suckle for only a month or as long as a year. Females become sexually mature when they are four years old, while males become mature at four or five years. Spermatogenesis in male giraffes begins at three to four years of age. Males must wait until they are at least seven years old to gain the opportunity to mate.

Sexually mature smooth green snakes mate in the late spring or summer, and gravid females lay eggs from June to September. Usually, two clutches are laid, each containing four to six eggs. Females usually lay their eggs in rodent burrows, mounds of rotting vegetation, sawdust piles, or rotting logs. In the northern habitats of this species, communal nesting has been observed.

U. marina becomes sexually mature at about five months old and may live for a year. The sexes are distinct and breeding takes place between April and October. Fertilisation is internal and there are about fifteen eggs, with batches produced every fifteen days or so. The eggs are brooded rather than being liberated into the water column and the juveniles grow rapidly.

The average gestation period is 42 days and females may have two or three litters each year. The litter size is usually between three and seven kits which are weaned after three to six weeks and become independent at three months. They become sexually mature at approximately six months and the average life span is seven to 10 years. Ferrets are induced ovulators.

Second, cuttlefish were trained to solve a spatial task in a T-maze, and the spatial strategy preferentially used (right/left turn or visual cues) was determined (test 2). Our results showed that sexually mature males travelled a longer distance in test 1, and were more likely to use visual cues to orient in test 2, compared with the other three groups.

There are three basic zones within each plant population; the reproductive core, the marginal establishment zone, and the outer seed shadow. The reproductive core of the plant population is the area in which sexually mature parental plants are present. This is the established reproductive source that provides the positive force for the population's expansion. The second region is the marginal establishment zone.

Sequestering of females and forced copulation may also favor large male size. Males with longer horns and mandibles can use them to fight, or for take over attempts when rivals are copulating. In beetle species, the male horns can be as long as the male’s body. Early sexually mature males can start their reproductive life before the rest of the male population.

Echinoderms become sexually mature after approximately two to three years, depending on the species and the environmental conditions. They are nearly all gonochoric, though a few species are hermaphroditic. The eggs and sperm cells are typically released into open water, where fertilization takes place. The release of sperm and eggs is synchronised in some species, usually with regard to the lunar cycle.

They continue to molt throughout life, undergoing multiple instars after reaching sexual maturity, whereas all other insects undergo only a single instar when sexually mature. Apterygotes possess small appendages, referred to as "styli", on some of their abdominal segments, but play no part in locomotion. They also have long, paired abdominal cerci and a single median, tail-like caudal filament, or telson.

Exoglossum is a genus of mound-building freshwater fish of the minnow family (Cyprinidae) containing two species, commonly known as cutlip minnows, although the individual species, particularly Exoglossum maxillingua, are also locally known by that name. Species of this genus usually range from 3 inches to 18 inches when sexually mature. In many areas these minnows are valued as both panfish and baitfish.

Metapopulation models have been used to explain life-history evolution, such as the ecological stability of amphibian metamorphosis in small vernal ponds. Alternative ecological strategies have evolved. For example, some salamanders forgo metamorphosis and sexually mature as aquatic neotenes. The seasonal duration of wetlands and the migratory range of the species determines which ponds are connected and if they form a metapopulation.

The beaded lizard becomes sexually mature at six to eight years and mates between September and October. Males engage in ritual combat that often lasts several hours; the victor mates with the female. The female lays her clutch of two to 30 eggs between October and December, the clutch hatching the following June or July. Young lizards are seldom seen.

In earthworms, the clitellum can only be seen when the worm is sexually mature. It may be white, orange-red or reddish-brown in colour. Earthworms are ready to mate when their clitellum is orange. In leeches, the clitellum appears during mating season, where it is used for both sexual reproduction and the secretion of a cocoon for the eggs.

ARKive The mating season occurs between September and December, during which the loud barks males make could be easily heard. The gestation period lasts about 6 months and a litter of 1–2 is born in early summer. The young becomes sexually mature at the age of 1–2 years, and could live up to 10–12 years in the wild.

Kleinmann's tortoise becomes sexually mature when about 5 years old. In the wild, mating has only been observed in March, but in captivity, it mates in April and August to November. During courtship, the male will ram the female, sometimes chasing after her. Unlike any other Mediterranean tortoise, T. kleinmanni may make a mating call similar to the call of the mourning dove.

Once the ammocoetes emerge from the eggs 2 weeks after fertilization, they spend the next 5–6 years feeding on algae and bacteria in burrows. They emerge in the fall as non-feeding juveniles after a 2-3 month metamorphosis and drift for 4–6 months until spawning begins. They then become sexually mature adults, partake in spawning and then die shortly thereafter.

The perch is a predatory species. Juveniles feed on zooplankton, bottom invertebrate fauna and other perch fry, while adults feed on both invertebrates and fish, mainly sticklebacks, perch, roach and minnows. Perch start eating other fish when they reach a size of around 120 mm. Male perch become sexually mature at between one and two years of age, females between two and four.

When the fly feeds on another host, the L3 larvae enter the host's blood stream through the bite wound. They are carried throughout the host's circulatory system, and embed themselves in the walls of the leptomeningeal arteries. After a 2-week maturation period, they migrate to the carotid artery. About 4–6 months later they become sexually mature and begin to produce microfilariae.

Woolley's false antechinus is the largest false antechinus and its behaviour is little known. It has a breeding life of two or more years, unlike many of its relatives which live for a short time. Births occur in September–October and the young are sexually mature at 10 months. Woolley's false antechinus is coloured rich brown above and buff below.

They make up an important component of nearshore fisheries in Southeastern Alaska. Rockfish are slow-growing and extremely long-lived, and black rockfish become sexually mature only after 6 to 8 years of age. Specimen collected off Alaska have been aged to 49 years old. In addition they benefit from a low natural mortality rate, at only about 7% of the total population.

Female pacific seahorses in captivity have been observed producing small broods at three months of age. Sexually mature females often develop a dark patch below the anal fin. Males reach sexual maturity at around in height. Unsuccessful reproductive activity in captivity has been noted at around three months of age, with successful pregnancies as early as six months of age.

Female honey blue-eyes are sexually mature at three months of age or when they have reached in standard length. Spawning takes place in spring and summer. Females spawn 40-125 eggs over 7–9 days, generally depositing them at the base of aquatic vegetation. When the young honey blue- eyes hatch, they will usually feed from the surface of the water.

They have silvery coloured bodies, with sexually mature males having black throat and ventral fins. They grow to a total length of . The specific name honours Arthur Lestrade (1897-1990), who collected the type of the type species of this genus as part of an important series of fishes he collected from Lake Tanganyika for the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

Five Year Plan for the Shortnose Sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum). Shortnose sturgeons are long-lived and slow to sexually mature. Most sturgeons are anadromous bottom-feeders, which means they migrate upstream to spawn but spend most of their lives feeding in rivers, deltas and estuaries. The shortnose sturgeon is often mistaken as a juvenile Atlantic sturgeon, because of their small size.

Males are territorial, perching in bankside plants and trees, waiting for females or chasing. They chase passing insects, often returning to the same perch. Males can stray well away from water, females live away from water unless egg-laying or seeking a mate. As with the banded demoiselle is also in the blue wing- demoiselle a pronounced territorial behavior of sexually mature males.

At some point between 4–8 months their sexual organs mature and they are now considered adults. Sexually mature animals can be 70–160 mm ML and weigh about 40 grams. Adult D. opalescens move off the continental shelf by day and can be found to depths of 500 m. Adult shoals return to the surface at night to hunt.

Males become sexually mature at around age 15. They may exhibit arrested development by not developing the distinctive cheek pads, pronounced throat pouches, long fur, or long calls until a resident dominant male is absent. The transformation from unflanged to flanged can occur quickly. Flanged males attract females in oestrous with their characteristic long calls, which may also suppress development in younger males.

Females give birth to a single young up to twice a year, typically between June and January. The young are born blind, and weighing around , after a gestation of 135 days. They are weaned by 40–80 days, and are able to fly by the time they have reached in weight. Females are sexually mature at ten months of age.

In most species it lasts approximately seven months, although in the larger species this extends to eight or nine months. They only give birth to a single calf. Once the young are born, they won't wean until they are around five to six months of age. Females sexually mature by two to three years while for males it is four to five years.

The larvae are planktonic and there are two zoeal larval stages and one megalopal stage. When they are ready to undergo metamorphosis, the larvae settle on the sea bed, possibly attracted to a particular location by pheromones released by other species. The females may become sexually mature when only in length. Petrolisthes armatus is frequently parasitised by the isopod Aporobopyrus curtatus.

Even when they move independently, they cannot always cross gaps in the canopy that adults can manage. To help them, an adult will stretch across the gap, forming a bridge over which the young can cross. Females become sexually mature at about four years, and males at about five years. Upon reaching sexual maturity, females leave their natal group, but males do not.

The long eye-stalked paralarvae of Bathothauma lyromma are plantonic and are found in the upper water column from less than 100m in depth down to 300m. As they age they undergo an ontogenetic vertical migration in which the larger individuals move down into the deeper depths of more than 1,500 m. They become sexually mature and mate at the depths.

Growth of white marlin is very rapid, with males reaching sexual maturity at only 153.2 cm LJFL and females becoming sexually mature at 189.9 cm LJFL. The lifespan of white marlin has been identified as 15 or more years. White marlin are ram ventilators, which means they have to be constantly moving to breathe. Many have made long transatlantic journeys.

Miso soup made of Japanese littleneck clams (Asari). This clam may become sexually mature in its first year of life, when it reaches about 15 millimeters in width, especially in warmer areas such as Hawaii. In cooler areas it begins breeding at older ages and larger sizes. In warmer regions it spawns year-round, but only in the summer in cooler areas.

Korean wolves mating in the Tama Zoological Park, Japan Wolves are monogamous, mated pairs usually remaining together for life. Should one of the pair die, another mate is found quickly. With wolves in the wild, inbreeding does not occur where outbreeding is possible. Wolves become mature at the age of two years and sexually mature from the age of three years.

A. a. fleayi is the largest of the wedge-tailed eagles. A. a. fleayi has a total body length between 100 and 110 cm with wingspans of 1.9–2.3 m, and weighs 3.5–5.5 kg. Females are larger (longer with a much larger beak) and are about 15% heavier than the males. They become sexually mature at 4–6 years of age.

It is oviparous, and sexually mature females lay 11-21 eggs. When produced, these already contain well- developed embryos, each of which can be as much as in total length. As a result, they hatch after only 30–32 days at 31 °C and then measure in total length. They do well in captivity and are relatively easy to breed.

The blenny darter's habitat is gravel and rubble riffles in creeks and small to medium rivers which have clear water. They appear to be nocturnal and collecting at night in suitable habitat has obtained many specimens. It most likely uses the riffles to spawn in too. They live for a maximum of two to three years and are sexually mature at one year.

This goby has a thin, elongated, "eel-like" body up to 13 centimeters (5.1in) in length. It exhibits neoteny, retaining a larval form even when a sexually mature adult. It lacks scales and has a swim bladder and a small pelvic fin; most gobies develop scales, lose their swim bladders, and grow longer pelvic fins as they mature into adulthood.

Zoologischer Anzeiger 199, 164-172. is supported by the observation that niches of asexual stages are often wider than those of sexually mature stages; that niches become narrower at the time of mating; and that microhabitats of sessile species and of species with small population sizes often are narrower than those of non-sessile species and of species with large population sizes.

The barbels are thin and short; the maxillary barbels only reach just beyond eye, and the bases of the chin barbels are close together. The fin spines are thin, long, slender. The adipose fin has a short base and is over the posterior two-thirds of the anal fin. The ventral fin pad of sexually mature females is scalloped and tapered.

Sexually mature females bear live young in broods of 4 to 21 neonates. The Arizona black rattlesnake is the first species of snake observed to exhibit complex social behavior, and like all temperate pit vipers, care for their babies. Females remain with their young in nests for 7 to 14 days, and mothers have been observed cooperatively parenting their broods.

By 3–4 months old, Romanovs are sexually mature and will start breeding any month of the year. The ewe can produce quadruplets, quintuplets, and even sometimes sextuplets. Romanov ewes tend to lamb in litters, unlike other sheep who give single or twin births. British and North American breeds of domesticated sheep are genetically different because the Romanov breed is a "pure gene", not a "cross".

176–177, 181 – well after they become sexually mature and indeed longer than the vast majority of individuals live.See Australian Bird and Bat Banding Studies In contrast to the ducks, males of hummingbirds and most lek-mating passerines – like the Guianan cock- of-the-rock or birds of paradise – retain their exuberant plumage and sexual dimorphism at all times, moulting as ordinary birds do once annually.

It measures 4.1-10.0 mm in length and is thinner than the female. The two sexes are colored similarly; however, the sexually mature male almost always has lighter, more reddish-coloured legs than the female. S. grossa spiders may shed up to six times (instars) before reaching maturity. According to Charles Hogue (Insects of the Los Angeles Basin, 1993), it reportedly preys on black widows.

Up to four young are born after a gestation period of about four months. They are able to eat solid food after a few days and may stay as a family group for up to two years, by which time they are sexually mature. Different species of hutia vary greatly in temperament, but biologist Garrett Clough described the Bahamian hutia as "a most peaceable rodent".

Small flying foxes feed mostly on the fruit of native and introduced trees but also consume flowers and nectar. The diet includes pawpaws, mangos, jambul, bananas, figs, flowers of the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) and the banyan, tree and flowers and fruits of cultivated crops. They consume about half their body weight each day. These bats become sexually mature at about one year of age.

Dyspanopeus sayi is a small crab, similar in appearance to Eurypanopeus depressus. It reaches a maximum carapace width of , with sexually mature females having a carapace or more across. The carapace is roughly hexagonal, about 1.3–1.4 times as wide as long and strongly convex. It has a finely granular surface, and has a light covering of hair, especially towards the front and sides.

The younger chicks eventually die and are intended as "back-ups" in case the eldest chick dies or is weak. Fledging is reached at around 105 days and the young birds can fly well by 112 days. However, they are still fed for possibly a month or more after this. It will take the young shoebills three years before they become fully sexually mature.

Only after 10 days, they begin to open their eyes and their feather quills break through. Both parents participate in feeding the chicks. The young depend on their parents for 7 to 8 weeks after hatching, and only become independent after 9 to 12 weeks. Conures are sexually mature around 2 years of age and have a lifespan ranging from 25 to 30 years.

These features make ctenophores capable of increasing their populations very quickly. Members of the Lobata and Cydippida also have a reproduction form called dissogeny; two sexually mature stages, first as larva and later as juveniles and adults. During their time as larva they are capable of releasing gametes periodically. After their reproductive larval period is over they will not produce more gametes again until after metamorphosis.

Both sexes become sexually mature by the time they are one year old; females enter oestrus from January to March. Mating behaviour is similar to that in the domestic cat: the male pursues the female in oestrus, seizes her by the nape of her neck and mounts her. Gestation lasts nearly two months. Births take place between December and June, though this might vary geographically.

In captivity, male black-footed cats become sexually mature at the age of nine months, and females at the age of seven months. Their oestrus lasts around 36 hours, and gestation lasts 63 to 68 days. The female gives birth to up to two litters per year between spring and autumn. The litter size is usually one or two kittens, in rare cases also four kittens.

D. villosus breeds all year round so long as the water temperature is above . When they mate, the female is carried on the ventral side of the male. Each pair produces an average of 27 eggs, but up to 50 eggs can be laid. The young animals become sexually mature in 4 to 8 weeks, once they are 6 mm in length and after moulting several times.

Females start mating at two years of age, and males too become sexually mature by that time. Sexual dimorphism, larger home ranges for males, and a female-biased population indicate polygyny in the species. The mountain nyala breed throughout the year, but the peak occurs in December. Prior to and during the breeding season the adult males tend to get associated with mixed sex herds.

Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife . Mating occurs when males (who usually achieve sexual maturity earlier in the season) pass spermatophores to the females. The female squid store them in the oral surface of their buccal membrane until they too become sexually mature later in the season and begin to spawn. Spawning is continuous and not seasonal, occurring virtually throughout the year in intermittent spawning events.

Barbronia weberi grows to a body length of about , with individuals becoming sexually mature from a length of about . The body is about wide and the rear suction cup has a diameter of approximately . The body surface is covered with tiny papillae and is a uniform red to dark reddish- brown colour, sometimes almost black. There are always three pairs of eyespots on the head.

Juvenile birds, at least in captivity, are mature after 5 years, and sexually mature after 6 or 7 years. This species can live to 50–60, to a maximum of 70, years of age. Ara ambiguus ssp. guayaquilensis has used a hole in a dead tree of the species Cavanillesia platanifolia at least one time, and has shown a preference for living Ceiba trichastandra in southern Ecuador.

The weevil generally enters the cowpea pod through holes before harvest and lays eggs on the dry seed. The larvae burrow their way into the seed, feeding on the endosperm. The weevil develops into a sexually mature adult within the seed. An individual bruchid can lay 20–40 eggs, and in optimal conditions, each egg can develop into a reproductively active adult in 3 weeks.

Lion tamarins: biology and conservation. Washington DC: Smithsonian Inst Pr. Females are sexually mature between of 15–20 months but it isn't until they are 30 months old when they can reproduce. Only dominant females can reproduce and will suppress the reproduction of the other females in the group.French JA, Bales KL, Baker AJ, Dietz JM. (2003) "Endocrine monitoring of wild dominant and subordinate female Leontopithecus rosalia".

They are polygynous and become sexually mature at around 4 to 5 months. The males in the groups may be violent and fight one another for territory and mates. There are 7 young born per litter, and if healthy enough, females can have 4 litters per year. Breeding season is typically from May to August, but are seen to be similar to that of Monodelphis domestica.

Females will molt approximately 7 times, with their terminal molts being in mid to late summer. Males will molt only 6 times and will have a terminal molt mid to late summer also. Nymphs and juveniles spend all spring and early summer catching as much prey as possible and growing. Adults reach sexual maturity in late summer and will mate as soon as they are sexually mature.

Males compete with each other to gain control of a harem of females that they can then mate with. After a 220- to 240-day-long gestation period, normally a single calf is born. The young are spotted at birth; these spots fade as the animal grows. The young are weaned at 7 months of age, and becomes sexually mature from 18 months of age onwards.

At the end of the post-larval stage, juveniles resemble an adult mackerel in all but size. Schooling behavior occurs around this time. Sexual maturity is reached at around 2 years of age, though some fish may reproduce a season earlier or a season later. Though some fish are sexually mature at in length, even by only about half of females will be ready to reproduce.

Several aspects of the life history of the fish vary geographically. Fish on the East Coast and in Florida are larger than individuals in Mississippi, for example. The fish becomes sexually mature at larger sizes in more northern latitudes. This may be because fish in milder climates can begin reproductive investment earlier, putting their energy into gonadal growth instead of body growth at younger ages.

Male juvenile Mungos mungo may reduce helping behaviors until sexual maturity is reached. Similarly, if there is a lack of food due to environmental conditions, such as reduced rainfall, the degree of helper input may be reduced greatly within juveniles. Adults may maintain their full activity because they are sexually mature. Additionally, the costs of being a helper can be more detrimental to one sex.

Female coelacanths give birth to live young, called "pups", in groups of between five and 25 fry at a time; the pups are capable of surviving on their own immediately after birth. Their reproductive behaviors are not well known, but it is believed that they are not sexually mature until after 20 years of age. Gestation time is estimated to be 13 to 15 months.

Callipodida are long and narrow millipedes, up to in length with 40-60 body segments. A dorsal groove is present running down the mid-line of the body, and many species are ornamented with longitudinal crests or ridges. Sexually mature males possess a single pair of gonopods, consisting of the modified anterior leg pair of the 7th body segment, and carried concealed within a pouch.

Green frog tadpoles are olive green and iridescent creamy-white below. Metamorphosis can occur within the same breeding season or tadpoles may overwinter to metamorphose the next summer. Males become sexually mature at one year, females may mature in either two or three years. Research show that wild green frogs, both living in contaminated suburban backyard ponds and also in relatively pristine forested ponds, can switch sexes.

Not much is known about the sexual behavior of worm pearlfish. Sexually mature male-female pairs of worm pearlfish been found cohabiting in sea cucumbers, so worm pearlfish are thought to mate and spawn inside their hosts. Larvae may then be expelled by the normal expiration of the sea cucumber. Like all members of the family Carapidae, worm pearlfish are hatched as holoplanktonic – i.e.

Rarely, eastern gray females can enter estrus as early as five and a half months old, but females are not normally fertile until at least one year of age. Their mean age of first estrus is 1.25 years. The presence of a fertile male will induce ovulation in a female going through estrus. Male eastern grays are sexually mature between one and two years of age.

The animals remain attached to the substrate by a stalk at the opposite end from the mouth. Staurozoans can be regarded as large polyps that have partially differentiated into sexually mature medusae. These spawn gametes which develop into non-swimming planulae that crawl away to new locations. Hydrozoa is a large group of solitary and colonial cnidarians from both marine and freshwater environments worldwide.

Pup Female fox squirrels come into estrus in mid- December or early January, then again in June. They normally produce two litters a year; however, yearling females may only produce one. Females become sexually mature at 10 to 11 months of age and usually produce their first litter when they are a year old. Gestation occurs over a period of 44 to 45 days.

A typical clupeid, this is a small silver fish with a brighter stripe down the lateral line, a broad snout with tapering sides. It has a relatively large swim bladder which allows it to travel large vertical distances in the water column. The maximum length is 17 cm, but most specimens are about 10 cm long and they are thought to be sexually mature at 6.8 cm.

This modification attracts the parasite's definitive hosts, birds: the bird rips off the eye stalk and eats it, thus becoming infected with the sexually mature parasites. Later on the parasite's eggs are dropped with the bird's feces. Similar life-histories are found in most species in the genus Leucochloridium, including Leucochloridium paradoxum. The snail regenerates a replacement eye stalk, which can also become reinfected by the parasite.

As young horseshoe crabs grow, they move to deeper waters, where molting continues. Before becoming sexually mature around age 9, they have to shed their shells some 17 times. In the first 2–3 years of their life, the juveniles stay in shallow coastal waters near the breeding beaches. Longevity is difficult to assess, but the average lifespan is thought to be 20–40 years.

It takes about a year for the male to become sexually mature, and most females become pregnant at approximately six to eight months of age. Medway observed that breeding was non-seasonal in Peninsular Malaysia and that a single young was produced and carried by the female during the early stage of its life. Breeding is also non-seasonal in Thailand.Lekagul B. and J. A. McNeely. 1977.

The eastern blue groper feeds mainly on crabs, shrimps, molluscs and echinoderms. Juvenile fish live in seagrass beds where their diet is primarily small crustaceans. This fish is a sequential hermaphrodite, starting life as a female and becoming a male when it has reached a length of at least . The fish become sexually mature at age two to three and breeding takes place between July and September.

Male Port Jackson sharks become sexually mature between ages 8 and 10, and females at 11 to 14. They are oviparous, meaning that they lay eggs rather than give live birth to their young. The species has an annual breeding cycle which begins in late August and continues until the middle of November. During this time, the female lays pairs of eggs every 10 to 14 days.

The wood turtle becomes sexually mature between 14 and 18 years of age. Mating activity among wood turtles peaks in the spring and again in the fall, although it is known to mate throughout the portion of the year they are active. However, it has been observed mating in December. In one rare instance, a female wood turtle hybridized with a male Blanding's turtle.

Males usually start eclosion (emergence) earlier than females and peak in numbers before females. Both of the sexes are sexually mature by the time of eclosion. Butterflies and moths normally do not associate with each other, except for migrating species, staying relatively asocial. Mating begins with an adult (female or male) attracting a mate, normally using visual stimuli, especially in diurnal species like most butterflies.

Western jackdaws become sexually mature in their second year. Genetic analysis of pairs and offspring shows no evidence of extra-pair copulation and there is little evidence for couple separation even after multiple instances of reproductive failure. Some pairs do separate in the first few months, but almost all pairings of over six months' duration are lifelong, ending only when a partner dies.Cramp, p. 128.

Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (FHA) is a form of amenorrhea and chronic anovulation and is one of the most common types of secondary amenorrhea. It is classified as hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It was previously known as "juvenile hypothalamosis syndrome," prior to the discovery that sexually mature females are equally affected. FHA has multiple risk factors, with links to stress-related, weight-related, and exercise-related factors.

Subspecies of gopher snakes lay their eggs from June to August, and the Great Basin gopher snake is no exception. After the sexually mature snakes mate in spring, the females usually lay 3-24 eggs, with 7 eggs being the average. It usually takes the eggs 2 to 2.5 months to hatch. When the young emerge, they are usually in the range of in total length.

The Andean Gull nests in small scattered colonies, sometimes even as solitary pairs, in small, isolated ponds. Unusually for a gull of this size, it becomes sexually mature at the age of two years rather than three. It feeds on a variety of prey items, including insects and worms taken on fields and grasslands; it also sometimes catches aerial insects and eats some garbage when available.

The mother grooms her offspring during rest periods lasting up to an hour. Grooming peaks during the first three months and declines as the young reaches nine months of age, ending by ten months. The decline mirrors that of the weakening bond between mother and offspring; young anteaters usually become independent by nine or ten months. Anteaters are sexually mature in 2.5–4 years.

The zygote transforms to a larva 7–8 hours after fertilization. The larvae stay in the water column for 10–12 days before undergoing metamorphosis into a juvenile and settling onto a surface. The juveniles become sexually mature when they are in length, a size reached within 2–3 months. Growth is influenced by the availability of food, temperature, water movement, the mussel's age, and caging.

The pygmy killer whale is dark gray to black on the cape and has a sharp change to lighter gray on the sides. The flesh around their lips and on the end of their snout is white while pinkish white skin surrounds the genitals. The average length is just over two meters (6.5 ft.). Upon reaching 2 meters in length, males are considered sexually mature.

They are not closely related to the house mouse and the rats. Pemberton's deer mouse is a very cold-tolerant species; they live and survive in temperatures between 22 and 25 °C. They are usually sexually mature by 55 days of age. Gestation is 23 days, except in lactating, females when it is delayed by four to six days to 28 or 30 days.

The spoonhead sculpin is sexually mature at two years of age when it gets to be about 7.0-8.0 cm in length. Spawning occurs in the fall when males will go out, find, and defend territories from other males. Once a territory is established the male will drive other males away from his territory, which includes a nest site. Males will select nest sites under rocks.

They become sexually mature in a few days, as a result of both an increased duration of photophase and the ingestion of faba bean pollen and nectar (Tran and Huignard 1993). Adults are extremely mobile during the day, and find refuge in resting sites in flowers and young leaves at night and early morning. They migrate from crop to crop following flower availability. Field density can vary.

The buttercup lucine is a filter feeder, drawing water into its mantle cavity through a long siphon that extends to the surface of the sediment. The water passes over its gills where both oxygen and food particles are extracted and is expelled through another siphon. These molluscs are eaten by fish, crustaceans and birds. The buttercup lucine becomes sexually mature at a length of about .

Their immature stages are aquatic fresh water forms (called "naiads" or "nymphs"), whose presence indicates a clean, unpolluted environment. They are unique among insect orders in having a fully winged terrestrial preadult stage, the subimago, which moults into a sexually mature adult, the imago. Mayflies "hatch" (emerge as adults) from spring to autumn, not necessarily in May, in enormous numbers. Some hatches attract tourists.

The total life span of this species is approximately 4 years. Banded gourami has three distinctive life stages: pre-spawning (January–March), spawning (April–August) and post-spawning (September–December). They become sexually mature at 1 year of age with the total length of male and female reached approximately at 10 cm and 6–8 cm, respectively. Generally males are slightly larger in size than their females.

Gobi jerboa reproduce between May and August once or twice a year, and can have between one and three offspring per litter. (Smith and Xie 2008). The mother has a rather long pregnancy, and the young are born naked and helpless. Newborn Gobi jerboas develop slower than most rodents; they are not able to jump until around 11 weeks of age and are not sexually mature until 14 weeks of age.

It ends in a roomy nesting chamber. When the animal is underground, the entrance of the burrow is plugged with earth. The lesser bamboo rat emerges above ground at dusk to forage for plant material such as shoots, especially of bamboo, and roots. These rats become sexually mature at the age of one year and females produce litters of two to five offspring after a gestation period of about six weeks.

After birth, young stay in the mothers pouch for approximately 6 months. They are considered sexually mature at 14–15 months. There are many pademelon species, but Calaby’s pademelon is considered one of the most endangered due to its poorly distributed population from habitat loss. This species is classified as endangered by the IUCN.2 The arrival of human populations have been largely responsible for Calaby’s Pademelon’s dwindling population.

When they have developed to the point where they are capable of feeding themselves, the fish are called fry. When, in addition, they have developed scales and working fins, the transition to a juvenile fish is complete and it is called a fingerling. Fingerlings are typically about the size of fingers. The juvenile stage lasts until the fish is fully grown, sexually mature and interacting with other adult fish.

Heteractis malu occurs in scattered areas ranging from Japan in the north, to Australia in the south, east to the islands of Hawaii and west to Sumatra. The only anemonefish associated with this species is Clark's anemonefish (Amphiprion clarkii). Sexually mature fish are rarely associated with H. malu, however the reason for this is unknown. The relationship between anemonefish and their host sea anemones is highly nested in structure.

Female Pacific blue- eyes are sexually mature at six months of age or when they have reached in standard length. Males are mature at standard length. A study published in 2003 showed that males will preferentially choose larger females—who are more fecund as a rule—unless more energy is required to do so, such as swimming further against a current. Fish can breed in fresh and salt water.

It creates a tube of silk that is hidden partially underground, with the portion above ground being covered in leaves and other debris. The spider waits for an insect to land or crawl onto the tube, then bites through the silk to pull the insect inside. These spiders usually do not leave their webs for any reason other than mating. These spiders become sexually mature at about 4 years.

Younger sexually mature males are almost indistinguishable from females and are often the breeding males. In spring and summer, a troop of white-winged fairywrens has a brightly coloured older male accompanied by small, inconspicuous brown birds, many of which are also male. Three subspecies are recognised. Apart from the mainland subspecies, one is found on Dirk Hartog Island, and another on Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia.

Northern spotted owls reach sexually mature at two years of age, but do not typically breed until three years of age. Male and females mate in February or March, with the female laying two or three eggs in March or April. Eggs are incubated by the female for around thirty days until hatching. After hatching, the young owls remain in the nest and the adult female provides primary care.

Reesimermis nielseni is a parasite of the larvae of mosquitoes. It is known to infect 22 different species of mosquito in the wild and another 33 species in the laboratory. On emerging from their host larvae, these nematodes fall to the bottom of the water body. They become sexually mature in about sixty days and females lay a total of around 2,500 eggs over a period of eighteen days or so.

The Asian wild ass is sexually mature at two years old, and the first mating usually takes place at three to four years old. Breeding is seasonal, and the gestation period of onagers is 11 months; the birth lasts a little more than 10 minutes. Mating and births occur from April to September, with an accumulation from June to July. The mating season in India is in the rainy season.

Stone breams are mainly herbivores, meaning that their diet is composed of marine plants like macro-algae. Their diet consists of red algae and other sea plants. Because of this, they tend to dwell in shallow, rocky waters, feeding off of many different kinds of plants. Stone breams become sexually mature at fork lengths of for males and for females, when they are 3 to 4 years of age.

Depending on the size, the average female may lay 195,000 – 8 million eggs during spawning season, with the average female laying 2.3 million eggs. In response to the overfishing, the tilefish's age of sexual maturity has been dramatically affected. From 1978 to 1982, the median age of sexual maturity in males declined by 2.5 years from 7.1 to 4.6 years. This resulted in the males becoming sexually mature before females.

The Modoc sucker (Catostomus microps) is a rare species of freshwater fish native to northern California and southern Oregon. It grows to a length of about and becomes sexually mature at . It feeds on algae, small invertebrates and detritus, and hides under stones, detritus and overhanging vegetation. It is found in only a few streams and is listed as an endangered species in California and the United States.

L. minor is a solitary species and like most other praying mantises will only come together to mate. Mating times for this species are highly dependent upon weather conditions and prey availability. Typically females are most likely to accept a mate and have a successful clutch two weeks after their last molt. Male ground mantids will detect a female by following a pheromone released by a sexually mature female.

Breeding occurs throughout the year, although more fawns are born November to December in the southern spring–summer; some females may breed twice a year. Gestation period is about 170 days, and usually a single precocious fawn is produced. The fawn is kept hidden in vegetation for 2 weeks, but they suckle for 3 months. Females become sexually mature at 6–8 months and males at 9 months.

Both parents tend for the precocial young, which might become independent at about one year of age or maybe earlier. However, it may also be that few birds less than two years of age are sexually mature, suggesting that the grown-up immatures could just as well spend another year or so living with or nearby their parents. A captive bird lived to an age of more than 20 years.

Trogopterus xanthipes builds its nests in cliffs, usually around 30 m above the ground. They live in mountainous terrain in altitudes of 1300 to 1500 m above sea level, or even up to 2750 m according to some sources. Their activity pattern is nocturnal; they leave their nests at night to search for food such as nuts, fruits, and leaves. They become sexually mature at about 22 months.

They are initially blind and only partially furred, and remain attached to the mother's teats for most of their first two weeks, although they are able to crawl from two days of age. They are weaned at around three weeks, and their eyes open after fifteen to eighteen days. The rats become sexually mature at around 75 days of age, and have lived for up to five years in captivity.

Japanese macaques grooming Japanese macaques live in matrilineal societies, and females stay in their natal groups for life, while males move out before they are sexually mature. Macaque groups tend to contain a number of adults of both sexes. In addition, a Japanese macaque troop contains several matrilines. These matrilines may exist in a dominance hierarchy with all members of a specific group ranking over members of a lower-ranking group.

Their primary benefit is an increased reproductive rate and survival. Cooperative breeding causes the reproductive success of all sexually mature adults to be skewed towards one mating pair. This means the reproductive fitness of the group is held within a select few breeding members and helpers have little to no reproductive fitness. With this system, breeders gain an increased reproductive fitness, while helpers gain an increased inclusive fitness.

Crystal gobies are an "annual" species which means that they die after reproducing. The eggs are demersal and can be found in the tubes of polychaetes and serpulids. It has been suggested that spawning occurs between May and September, with the Northeastern Atlantic Crystal gobies spawning before the Mediterranean ones. Crystal gobies are unique because the females can be sexually mature at only 4 months, which is relatively fast for gobies.

Spawning takes place during the winter months, with the peak of activity occurring from December through February. Most spawning takes place off the edge of the continental shelf in deep waters of . Male halibut become sexually mature at seven to eight years of age, while females attain sexual maturity at eight to 12 years. Females lay 0.5 to 4.0 million eggs annually, depending on the size of the fish.

These peaks coincide with the peak rainfall of the year. Young birds become sexually mature when they are one year old. However, before the actual breeding is done, there is the courtship feeding of females, mutual preening, copulation and prospecting of nests sites that must be done. Once the male southern yellow-billed hornbill has mated, it will stay with his mate and establish a territory that it will defend.

Love, p. 58 Females become sexually mature at around three or four years of age and males at around five; however, males often do not successfully breed until a few years later.Love, p. 53 A captive male sired offspring at age 19. In the wild, sea otters live to a maximum age of 23 years, with lifespans ranging from 10–15 years for males and 15–20 years for females.

Females are sexually mature at 2 to 3 years of age and males at about 2 years. Breeding occurs throughout the year, but it peaks during winter and early spring. In the northern Sahara, breeding peaks at the end of winter and the beginning of spring; in the southern Sahara, breeding peaks from September to October and from January to mid-April. Each estrus bout lasts for one or two days.

Sexually mature young bulls may try to start mating with cows by the age of two or three years, but if more mature bulls are present, they may not be able to compete until they reach five years of age. For the first two months of life, calves are lighter in color than mature bison. One very rare condition is the white buffalo, in which the calf turns entirely white.

Individuals are sexually mature at around . Major threats to this species could be habitat loss, through coastal development and pollution, and overexploitation through bycatch. Some other threats include human use by drying out the seahorse for traditional medicine or as a curio. Some distinctive characteristics include dark spots, one on the top of the coronet or crown of the seahorse's head and some on the dorso-lateral surface of the seahorse.

Phidippus clarus becomes adult in early summer, and females about to lay eggs can weigh . Early in the breeding season, in early to mid-July, there are more males than females. The females all become sexually mature at the same time. At this point during this part of the breeding season males die off, so that the number of males becomes equal to or slightly smaller than the number of females.

A sexually mature and viable male must produce the urine, as the pheromones that produce the Whitten effect are dependent on male sex hormones such as testosterone. The female mice do not require direct contact with the male’s urine to produce the Whitten effect, as the pheromone contained in the urine is airborne and therefore is taken up by the females through their olfactory system.Gangrade, B.K., and C.J. Dominik.

The African forest elephant has pink tusks, which are thinner and harder than the tusks of the African bush elephant. The length and diameter vary between individuals. Tusks of bulls grow throughout life, tusks of cows cease growing when they are sexually mature. They use their tusks for marking and debarking trees, digging for roots, minerals and water, to rest and protect the trunk, and also for defense and attack.

Amphiura chiajei becomes sexually mature at about four years of age and may live for ten years. The gonads grow in size over the winter and spring and broadcast spawning takes place in late summer and early autumn. The larvae drift with the current and settle on the seabed and undergo metamorphosis at around eight days. This short larval period means that their potential to disperse is limited.

Both sexes of common treeshrews are sexually mature at the age of about three months. In captivity, females give birth for the first time at the age of about 4.5 mo, usually in February. A postpartum oestrus results in more births in April. Their oestrus cycle is eight to 39 days, and the gestation period lasts 40 to 52 days, after which a litter of one to three individuals is born.

The squirrels breed throughout the year, and may mate again as soon as they have weaned a previous litter. Pregnancy lasts 47 to 49 days, and results in the birth of up to four young, with two being typical. The young leave the nest at 40 to 50 days old, and are sexually mature at one year of age. They have lived for up to 17 years in captivity.

A. graminea is considered to be viviparous (giving birth to live offspring). Typically, females become sexually mature in their 3rd year of life and can give birth to litters of 1-12 offspring. Although copulation has not been observed in the wild, mating typically occurs in the summer/fall, and parturition occurs in the spring. The gestation period for the Mexican alligator lizard is approximately 6-8 months.

They sexually mature between three and five years of age. Females will usually stay with the social group in which they were born; however, young adult males tend to disperse and attempt to enter other social groups. Not all males succeed in joining other groups and may become solitary, attempting to join other social groups for many years. Macaques have a typical lifespan of 20 to 30 years.

The typical life span of a wild antelope squirrel is 2–4 years; although, in captivity they have been known to survive 11 years. Males and females are sexually mature by the end of their first year. The reproductive season last from February to March with typically one litter per year. Each litter contains between 5-14 young that will wean around 8 weeks and make their first appearance above ground.

It may also feed on heptageniid nymphs on the underside of rocks. They become sexually mature when they are greater than one year old and at least long. Research on the citico darter (Etheostoma sitikuense), another member of the duskytail complex, has shown that it can produce five to seven clutches per year with clutch sizes recorded up to 101 eggs. The citico darter spawns at water temperatures between .

The common chameleon is usually solitary, maintaining a territory and only tolerating members of the opposite sex during the mating season. It is sexually mature within one year and the females produce one clutch of eggs per year. Larger females produce more eggs and are more attracted to males who will fight over a female. The mating season for the common chameleon is from mid-July to mid-September.

The larval stage lasts for up to 18 months during which they feed mainly on krill. They become sexually mature at four years, and normally live up to about eight years, but sometimes as long as twelve. In the Antarctic autumn, adult C. rastrospinosus migrate to shallow waters to spawn at a depth of 200–300 m. The eggs are scattered and hatch six months later around April.

The female Nicothoe astaci is the only individual to be definitely recognised, described and figured by scientists. Some female specimens have been studied and placed under the category of a male but have been traced to not be in the species. However, many wingless specimens have been found and observed in the lab to be analyzed. Specimens having full complement segments were described to be sexually mature males.

Males and females at the larval stage either develop wings or stay wingless. The males mature without wings and the females become sexually mature with wings. Furthermore, several specimens have been studied in various stages of development and have been found to contain testes in the thorax and genital segment. The development of males occurs as cyclopids during the gap in the life history between cyclopid and last copepod stages.

Cooperative breeding causes the reproductive success of all sexually mature adults to be skewed towards one mating pair. This means the reproductive fitness of the group is held within a select few breeding members and helpers have little to no reproductive fitness. With this system, breeders gain an increased reproductive, while helpers gain an increased inclusive fitness. Cooperative breeding, like speciation, can become a self-reinforcing process for a species.

The gestation period is 30–31 days, after which the incompletely developed fetus (referred to as a joey) attaches to the teat in the pouch for 130–150 days. Females sexually mature between 26 and 36 months while males mature at around 72 months. The western grey kangaroo is closely related to the eastern grey kangaroo (M. giganteus), and their distribution overlaps extensively, especially in the Murray–Darling basin.

Males possess glands that secrete pheromones to attract females that can act over a distance of 240 cm. After birth, pheromone biosynthesis occurs after 12 hours, and it takes males 24 hours to become sexually mature. Male courtship behavior involves the aggregation of males who compete with one another by producing sex pheromones. Males encircle females and use the vibrating movement and flapping of their wings to produce audible sounds.

Mating is preceded by a courtship/pairing period in many animal mating systems. It is during this period that sexually mature animals select their partners for reproduction. This courtship period, which involves displays to attract a mate by a member of a species, is usually short, lasting anywhere from 15 minutes to a few days. However, certain animals may undergo an extended courtship period, lasting as long as two months.

They are nocturnal, spending the day resting in a burrow. A. astacus become sexually mature after three to four years and a series of moults, and breed in October and November. Fertilised eggs are carried by the female, attached to her pleopods, until the following May, when they hatch and disperse. The main predators of A. astacus, both as juveniles and adults, are mink, eels, perch, pike, otters, and muskrats.

Gestation period is about 5 months, and all infants within a group are typically born within one week of each other during January or February. Males provide no parental care, but non-maternal females provide some alloparental care. Infants have slightly prehensile tails and are weaned at about 6 months. Females are sexually mature at about 2 1/2 years, and males are fully mature at 4 or 5 years.

Development of Pediculus humanus humanus (body lice), which is similar to that of head lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) Head lice, like other insects of the order Phthiraptera, are hemimetabolous. Newly hatched nymphs will moult three times before reaching the sexually- mature adult stage. Thus, mobile head lice populations contain members of up to four developmental stages: three nymphal instars, and the adult (imago). Metamorphosis during head lice development is subtle.

The secretions of the gland illustrate how this coloration is cosmetic. For example, species of hornbill produce colored gland secretions that they apply to their plumage, thereby changing the color of their feathers. Only sexually mature birds develop the coloration, which would lead to the inference that these secretions have something to do with the sexual activity of the birds. Another example is in the greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus).

The development of the gonads starts during the winter and the shrimps reach sexual maturity in their second summer. Sexually mature males have an extended reproductive capacity and are able to mate throughout the year, however the females mature seasonally. In the Strait of Sicily the females maturate and spawn from spring until autumn, with a peak in summer- autumn. This species gathers in shoals when mating and spawning.

Larger specimens are far easier to discern, because of marked differences in color and body shape. By the time both species attain sexual maturity, they become relatively easy to tell apart from one another, the silver bream's scales remaining a bright, highly reflective, silver colour all their lives, whilst the scales of the bronze bream begin to take on a variety of hues, from dark brown to a light ochre yellow; however, some bronze bream do remain a silvery colour all their lives, depending upon habitat. Confusion arises when sexually mature silver bream and sexually immature bronze bream are cursorily compared in the field, because bronze bream grow to the same size as sexually mature silver bream very quickly whilst still very young, and when they are almost invariably a silver colour themselves. The maximum weight a silver bream varies with the habitat quality, but in optimum conditions can be 1.6 kg (3.5 lb).

This fish breeds in late March and continues until early July, and in individual areas the breeding period lasts about two weeks. The eggs are spread either over vegetation or in gravelly areas, which have been previously cleared by the male. The number of eggs varies between 3000 and 20,000. Its eggs hatch after one week and the juveniles become sexually mature at three, while its lifespan generally ranges five to six years.

When a young is born, it climbs into the pouch and clings to a teat. It stays in the pouch for six months growing to around 0.45 kg, with a light pelage and open eyes. It soon leaves the pouch and starts grazing at the surface. The young is fully weaned when it is a year old and reaches full size at the age of three years, which is also when it becomes sexually mature.

Juvenile male offspring leave the harem and live either solitarily, or, with other young males in groups known as bachelor herds.David, J. H. M. "The Behaviour of the Bontebok, Damaliscis Dorcas Dorcas, (Pallas 1766), with Special Reference to Territorial Behaviour." Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 33 (1973): 38-107 Sexually mature female offspring may stay within their natal harem, or may join another harem.Qi, Xiao-Guang; Li, Bau-Guo; Garber, Paul A.; Ji, Weihong; and Wanatabe, Kunio.

Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Großstädter zur PaarungszeitTranslation: The curious conduct of sexually mature urbanites during mating season (English title – Love Scenes from Planet Earth) is a 1998 German romantic comedy film. It earned the director Marc Rothemund a Bavarian Film Award for "Best Young Director". It was the second highest grossing domestic film in Germany in 1998. The film is a comedy centering on the lives of eight Germans who long for sexual excitement.

Both the males and females become sexually mature by the time they are a year-and-a-half old. However, males actually mate after the age of four to five years. Males and females are most reproductive till the age of 14 and 14–18 years, respectively, with the maximum age of successful lactation in females being 13–14 years. With no fixed breeding season, births may occur at any time of the year.

The male Heteroteuthis dispar produces a spermatophore or sperm package which is transferred to the female before she is sexually mature. She stores it and makes use of it at the optimal time for fertilisation. The spermatophore is large, constituting about 3% of her weight, and therefore disadvantageous to her. This reproductive practice may be due to the fact that finding a mate deep in the ocean at the appropriate time is difficult.

The young fledge some 45–50 days after hatching and soon thereafter the birds migrate to winter quarters already. Lesser scaup become sexually mature in their first or second summer. The oldest known individual reached an age of over 18 years. Before the start of the population decline (see below), about 57% of the lesser scaup nests failed each breeding season because the female was killed or the eggs were eaten or destroyed.

The siphons of the juvenile ascidian become orientated to optimise current flow through the feeding apparatus. Sexual maturity can be reached in as little as a few weeks. Since the larva is more advanced than its adult, this type of metamorphosis is called 'retrogressive metamorphosis'. This feature is a landmark for the 'theory of retrogressive metamorphosis or ascidian larva theory'; the true chordates are hypothesized to have evolved from sexually mature larvae.

Their heads are sharply tapered and they have a slight crest of hair on their foreheads and on the back of their necks. Adult males have the upper canines visible on the sides of their mouths. They live for about eight years, becoming sexually mature at one to two years old. They breed seasonally before the monsoons giving birth to a litter of three to six after a gestation of 100 days.

The American Pygmy is small and stocky, with heavy bone: height at the withers is usually in the range , with weights of the order of . Seven color variations are recognised in the breed standard: caramel with black markings, caramel with brown markings, brown agouti, grey agouti, black agouti, black with white markings, and solid black. It is polyestrous, prolific and precocious – kids may become sexually mature at two months. Gestation normally lasts 145–153 days.

In these species the tadpoles drop into the water upon hatching. The eggs of some species laid out of water can detect vibrations of nearby predatory wasps or snakes, and will hatch early to avoid being eaten. While the length of the egg stage depends on the species and environmental conditions, aquatic eggs generally hatch within one week. Unlike salamanders and newts, frogs and toads never become sexually mature while still in their larval stage.

C. valentini organize themselves into harems dominated by one mature territorial male and containing one or more territorial females. There may also be some immature individuals of either sex present in the dominant male's territory. Each female has her own respective domain within the territorial male's. Bachelor males, males who are sexually mature but do not inhabit a territory of their own with females, are either wanderers or live near another social group.

Adult males are sexually mature at seven years of age and are territorial throughout the year in order to guarantee access to food and females. Females only become territorial when defending their nest site upon laying eggs and for several weeks following. The animals mate in May, and the female lays a single clutch of two to nine eggs in June. The eggs hatch in September after a 90-day incubation period.

Fat-tailed gerbils are sexually mature when they are 2 months old, and in captivity they reproduce the whole year round. The gestation period of the fat-tailed gerbil is 19 days. Their average litter size is 3 to 6, and the pups are weaned at 3–4 weeks. Breeding fat-tailed gerbils in captivity can be hard, as the females can be very aggressive when they are pregnant or nursing pups.

Oregon conservation video: 0:30–0:60 conservation factors; 1:50–2:00 hoop trap.(If video play problematic, see or for alternative video streams.) Commercial harvesting of painted turtle from the wild is controversial and, increasingly, restricted. cited in Worldwide, many turtle species are endangered and turtle trapping has been implicated as a cause. Since turtles are slow to sexually mature and are long-lived, they generally have poor replacement rates when hunted.

Pseudoplatystoma fasciatum or barred sorubim or barred catfish is a species of long-whiskered catfish native to the Suriname, Corantijn and Essequibo. The nocturnal predator feeds mainly on other fish and crabs. Females reach a more notable size. They become sexually mature at , males at and this species reaches a maximum length of TL. Fecundity seems to be estimated at 8 million eggs per kg,Le Bail, P.-Y, P. Keith and P. Planquette.

Their name in the local Arabic dialect where they were found roughly translates to "mister saddlebags" (Arabic: أبو جراب) due to the amount of storage space in their cheek pouches. If food is plentiful, the hamster stores it in large amounts. Sexually mature female hamsters come into season (estrus) every four days. Golden hamsters and other species in the genus Mesocricetus have the shortest gestation period in any known placental mammal at around 16 days.

After 5–6 weeks, body hair starts growing. It is able to leave the burrow to accompany its mother after only two weeks and eats termites at 9 weeks, and is weaned between three months and 16 weeks. At six months of age, it is able to dig its own burrows, but it will often remain with the mother until the next mating season, and is sexually mature from approximately two years of age.

The Vandenbergh effect is a phenomenon reported by J.G. Vandenbergh et al. in 1975, in which an early induction of the first estrous cycle in prepubertal female mice occurs as a result of exposure to the pheromone-laden urine of a sexually mature (dominant) male mouse. Physiologically, the exposure to male urine induces the release of GnRH, which provokes the first estrus. The Vandenbergh effect has also been seen with exposure to adult female mice.

Here they stay until the tadpoles undergo metamorphosis, at which time they crawl over their hosts' bodies and enter their bladders through their cloacas. Some of the flatworm larvae develop in a different way, particularly when developing on younger tadpoles, becoming prematurely sexually mature while still attached to the gills of the tadpole. These neotenic individuals are capable of producing viable eggs which pass out into the water and develop in the normal way.

They are weaned and leave the nest after about 15 days. Young are sexually mature at 7 months and reach adult weight at 10 months. The nests in which the young are born consist of a slight depression in the earth that is filled with grasses mixed with rabbit hair. Breeding season varies widely across the range of S. aquaticus, usually occurring anywhere between February and August, but can occur year-round in Texas.

They are unique among insect orders in having a fully winged terrestrial adult stage, the subimago, which moults into a sexually mature adult, the imago. In 1853, Walker first described about two species of mayflies from Sri Lanka. Then 1858, Hagen documented 8 more species from the country. The most useful taxonomic and other ecological aspects of mayflies of Sri Lanka came during 1960s and 1970s by Peters (1967) and Peters & Edmunds (1970).

Antarctic minke whales become sexually mature at 5 to 8 years of age for males and 7 to 9 years of age for females. Both become physically mature at about 18 years of age. After a gestation period of about 10 months, a single calf of is born – twin and triplet fetuses have been reported, but are rare. After a lactation period of about six months, the calf is weaned at a length of .

They are weaned at about eighteen days old. If they are born early in the year, they may start breeding in the same year, but late-born young become sexually mature in the following spring. The yellow-necked mouse is preyed on by owls, foxes, weasels and other predators. It can leap to evade attackers and the skin of its tail is readily detachable and slides off if grasped by a predator.

This is due to sexual dimorphism and an evolutionary change in timing of development. Juveniles became sexually mature before their bodies had fully developed into adulthood, and due to some selective advantage the neotenic structure of the skull remained in later generations. In some species, energy costs result in neoteny, as in the insect families Gerridae, Delphacidae, and Carabidae. Many of the species in these families have smaller, neotenous wings or no wings at all.

Hosts ingest C. hepatica eggs (from sources outlined below) which hatch into first stage larvae (L1). The L1 larvae bore through the intestinal wall and are carried to the liver by the hepatic portal vein. Development from the L1 stage to sexually mature adults occurs in the liver within 18–21 days. Eggs are laid in the liver parenchyma of the host throughout the adult worm's life span, which lasts for about 30–40 days.

Male narwhals attain sexual maturity at 11 to 13 years of age, when they are about long. Females become sexually mature at a younger age, between 5 and 8 years old, when they are around long. The pigmentation of narwhals is a mottled pattern, with blackish- brown markings over a white background. They are darkest when born and become whiter with age; white patches develop on the navel and genital slit at sexual maturity.

Offspring born in captivity have a shorter development time than those born in the wild. Specifically, the growth and development of the head and body, tail, hind feet, and pinnae can be up to a day sooner than those found in the wild. After 28 days of development in captivity, the young are already around half the mass of their parents. In captivity, females become sexually mature at two months of age.

Females become sexually mature at 36 months, males at 42 months. Females reaching sexual maturity are typically 42 months old by their first birth. They undergo a regular estrus cycle, with an average duration of 16.3 days, and display sexual skin changes, particularly swelling and color change (from white to light pink) of the labia minora. The copulatory sequence begins when a receptive female approaches a male and engages in rhythmic tongue flicking.

At nest, France Egg, Museum Wiesbaden The peregrine falcon is sexually mature at one to three years of age, but in larger populations they breed after two to three years of age. A pair mates for life and returns to the same nesting spot annually. The courtship flight includes a mix of aerial acrobatics, precise spirals, and steep dives. The male passes prey it has caught to the female in mid-air.

Small, colorful dots - yellow or magenta - may line the sides of the fourth and fifth instars. The larvae may take on a reddish-brown color just prior to cocooning. Fifth-instar larvae descend to the ground and use silk to bind dead leaves around the cocoon. The imagoes (winged, sexually mature), often referred to as 'adult moths,' emerge from the pupae with the wings small, crumpled and held close to the body.

The rearmost teeth are blunt, rounded, peg-shaped teeth. The rearmost two tooth classes only occur in sexually mature individuals thus indicating an ontogenetic shift in tooth morphology. Along with changes in tooth type, the frequency of each tooth type also changes with ontogeny, without an overall changes in tooth count (approximately 70 teeth). Rather than increase tooth count, the teeth themselves increase in size as the jaw grows from hatchling to adult.

Ambrosi's cave salamander is found in moist environments where it is active by night on the ground, sometimes scrambling around in low vegetation. Males become sexually mature at four years and females at five. After an elaborate courtship routine, a clutch of a few eggs about long is laid in a concealed location where they are guarded by the female until they hatch directly into juvenile salamanders. Longevity is estimated to be seventeen years.

Male spiders become sexually mature in the 9th to 11th stages, females in the 10th to 12th stages. Temperature can influence the development and number of stages, with colder temperatures slowing down the process. Under good conditions, spiders can complete their nymphal development in fewer than 12 stages. The duration from prelarval stage to final moult (maturity) typically lasts 257 days for males (stage 10) and 289 days for females (stage 11).

Neither sex is fully mature when it ecloses from the pupae. Males mature earlier: about one week after eclosion at which point their sperm is motile. Vitellogenesis, or the deposition of yolk into an oocyte, is necessary for ovarian maturation in a female. When an immature female is housed with sexually mature males, the female is behaviorally unreceptive to their sexual displays, yet vitellogenesis will occur about four days earlier than expected.

The eyes open at fifteen days, when the young begin to become more active. The deciduous teeth appear at about three weeks, with the permanent teeth following at seven to nine weeks. The young are weaned by six weeks and leave the mother not long after. They can become sexually mature at two to three months of age, although in the wild they will not typically breed during the first year of life.

Sloth bear cubs develop quickly compared to most other bear species: they start walking a month after birth, become independent at 24–36 months, and become sexually mature at the age of three years. Young cubs ride on their mother's back when she walks, runs, or climbs trees until they reach a third of her size. Individual riding positions are maintained by cubs through fighting. Intervals between litters can last two to three years.

Bolam's mouse has been recorded breeding in all seasons but typically breeds in spring and early summer to coincide with available food resources. It has also been observed to have an opportunistic breeding pattern that peaks with an elevenfold increase in numbers 12 months after a significant rainfall event to exploit additional food resources. Individuals are sexually mature when a body mass of 9 grams is reached. Females can have 4–6 offspring.

At night, they forage over a wide area and feed largely on roots, bulbs and tubers. Reproduction takes place between April and September when six or seven litters may be produced at intervals of about 35 days. The gestation period is 26 days, with each litter consisting of three to seven offspring which remain in the nest until they are weaned at two months of age. By three months, they are sexually mature.

Once males and females are both sexually mature, mating is spread over a few weeks. Insects are active when temperature reaches 20 °C; temperatures above 25 °C are very favorable to their activity in the field whereas colder temperatures below 15 °C and wet weather limit insect mobility. Once fertilized, females B. rufimanus lay eggs on developing pods of faba beans. Rain, wind and temperatures below 20 °C put on hold the oviposition process.

Female blue king crabs in the Pribilof Islands grow to the largest size before they are reproductively mature. About 50% of crabs are mature at CL. St. Matthew Island females can become sexually mature at CL and Diomede crabs are similar. Larger female crabs from the Pribilof Islands have the highest fecundity, producing 162,360 eggs or 110,033 larvae per crab. The reduction in fecundity is about 33% between the egg and larval stages.

When Hallam et al. (1980) studied natural populations of Hormosira in Australia they found that tide pool populations had a consistently higher proportion of infected plants (with Notheia) than the low shore reef populations. This suggests that Notheia has a much narrower tolerance limit than its host. They found that sexually mature Hormosira plants carried more infections and the infections were most abundant on the reproductive conceptacles usually close to the osteoles.

Like all beetles, the odd beetle undergoes complete metamorphosis, or a dramatic reorganization of the body plan of the insect and the formation of two distinct life stages, growth and reproduction, which are separated by a pupal phase. Although the female is larviform, she also undergoes metamorphosis from a true larva to a sexually mature adult. Once T. contractus has reached sexual maturity, the female produces a sex pheromone which attracts the male.Mertins, J. (1982).

As a planula settles down, it gives rise to a colony of polyps that are attached to the sea-floor. All the polyps and jellyfish arising from a single planula are genetically identical clones. The polyps form into an extensively branched form, which is not commonly seen in most jellyfish. Jellyfish, also known as medusae, then bud off these polyps and continue their life in a free-swimming form, eventually becoming sexually mature.

Females experience an estrus cycle immediately after giving birth that makes them especially receptive to postpartum copulations and allows them to have many successive litters. Sexual maturity is reached by young females very early; they can have litters when they are as young as 3 weeks old. Males become sexually mature at just 6 weeks. The third molars erupt after 22 days and this, along with molt patterns, can be used to age individuals.

They may freeze initially but then rely on their speed to escape. They can travel for short distances at per hour as they run to the safety of one of their burrows. The young dive in head first but the older animals reverse direction and back in so that they can defend themselves with their tusks. The juveniles become sexually mature at one to one and a half years and life expectancy is ten or more years.

Adults are sexually mature at between 7 and 11 years, mating occurs during late summer and autumn. Eggs develop on females, which carry between 100,000 and 500,000 eggs which are fertilised and held below the tail on hairs on the female's abdomen. The eggs develop here for 3 to 5 months. Eggs then metamorphose into naupliosoma larva which leave the female and are free swimming plankton which migrate towards the surface where they moult into a phyllosoma larva.

Meerkat pups Meerkats breed throughout the year with seasonal peaks, typically during months of heavy rainfall; for instance, maximum births occur from January to March in the southern Kalahari. Generally only dominant individuals breed, though subordinate members can also mate in highly productive years. Females become sexually mature at two to three years of age. Dominant females can have up to four litters annually (lesser for subordinate females), and the number depends on the amount of precipitation.

The banded pygmy sunfish, Elassoma zonatum, is a species of pygmy sunfish endemic to the United States, where it is found from Indiana and Illinois to Texas to the Atlantic coast. It prefers densely vegetated bodies of slow- moving water. This species can reach in total length, though most do not exceed . The banded pygmy sunfish are capable of retaining their juvenile characteristics while they are sexually mature; that is to say that they are neotenous.

Syllid polychaete budding epitokes for the purpose of sexual reproduction. Alitta succinea (common clam worm) in epitoky stage Epitoky is a process that occurs in many species of polychaete marine worms wherein a sexually immature worm (the atoke) is modified or transformed into a sexually mature worm (the epitoke). Epitokes are pelagic morphs capable of sexual reproduction. Unlike the immature form, which is typically benthic (lives on the bottom), epitokes are specialized for swimming as well as reproducing.

Silver chubs are rock and gravel spawners with pelagic free embryos. Life longevity for male silver chubs is three years and for females is four years. Kinney (1954) found most 1-year old fish to be sexually mature. During development, the average silver chub is 124 mm (4.88 in)in standard length after the first year, 147 mm (5.88 in) in standard length after the second year, and 164 mm (6.46 in) in standard length after the third year.

During breeding season, the female is solely responsible for nest building and incubation, and the male will provide the female and the hatchlings with food. South Island robins become sexually mature between six and 12 months of age. They begin their breeding season fairly early in August or September (Southern Hemisphere spring) and thus can make use of the winter's remaining food stores during this time. They build open-cup nests in tree-forks or inside tree cavities.

Rock bass are sexually mature at about 2 to 3 years of age. Rock bass are polygynandrous, in which both females and males have multiple mates during the breeding season. Spawning occurs from April to early June in warm waters ranging from 12 to 15 degrees Celsius, with females laying from 2,000 to 11,000 eggs. Like other members of the sunfish family, the male will dig a nest near the lake shallows, and will aggressively guard it.

Though sharks across separate ecosystems do favor similar diets despite their location, their diet diversity does slightly differ depending on the ecosystem. Specifically, shortnose spurdog sharks live off the east coast of Australia show an increased level in their diet diversity when compared to other population groups in Australia. Size also plays a role in diet. While larger, sexually mature sharks typically go after prize pray such as mollusks, smaller sharks rely more heavily on crustaceans.

There are three extant kinds of mammals: monotremes, placentals and marsupials, all with internal fertilization. In placental mammals, offspring are born as juveniles: complete animals with the sex organs present although not reproductively functional. After several months or years, depending on the species, the sex organs develop further to maturity and the animal becomes sexually mature. Most female mammals are only fertile during certain periods during their estrous cycle, at which point they are ready to mate.

It preys on small terrestrial mammals, such as armadillo, opossum and lagomorphs. Both sexes become sexually mature at around two years of age; they can breed throughout the year, though the peak mating season varies geographically. After a gestation period of two to three months, the female gives birth to a litter of one to three kittens. They stay with their mother for up to two years, after which they leave to establish their own territories.

The young emerge from their birth den at three to four weeks of age, by which time they have a full coat of fur and are already beginning to be weaned. The young are initially cautious, but begin to exhibit the full range of nonreproductive adult behavior within about four weeks of emerging from the burrow. Subadults initially remain with their birth colony, but typically leave at two years of age, becoming fully sexually mature the following year.

The western galaxias is a fast- swimming schooling fish and often forms shoals just above the substrate in the shallows. It is often found in and around submerged vegetation in rocky pools at the base of rapids and waterfalls. At the beginning of the wet season it moves upstream to small streams where it spawns among vegetation in flooded areas. It becomes sexually mature at the age of one year and may live for five years.

When rain falls, it stands with its hind legs straightened, its front legs bent and its head lowered, so that water landing on its back trickles towards its mouth. A female becomes sexually mature when about long. In the rainy season she digs a hole in damp ground some deep in which she lays a clutch of up to five white or pink-tinged eggs. Incubation takes about thirty days and the young are about long when they hatch.

E. vogeli has the largest strobila within the Echinococcus genus, reaching a length of 12 mm. This tapeworm resides in the small intestine of bush and domestic dogs. E. vogeli contains a scolox, where a hook-filled rostellum is located, and a long neck that attaches to up to six proglottids. The gravid proglottid, the sexually mature proglottid that releases eggs into the dogs feces, is cylindrical and takes up about half of the strobilar length.

Cephalopods that are sexually mature and of adult size begin spawning and reproducing. After the transfer of genetic material to the following generation, the adult cephalopods then die. Sexual maturation in male and female cephalopods can be observed internally by the enlargement of gonads and accessory glands. Mating would be a poor indicator of sexual maturation in females; they can receive sperm when not fully reproductively mature and store them until they are ready to fertilize the eggs.

Males are more aggressive in their pre-mating competition when in the presence of immature females than when competing for a sexually mature female. Most cephalopod males develop a hectocotylus, an arm tip which is capable of transferring their spermatozoa into the female mantel cavity. Though not all species use a hectocotylus; for example, the adult nautilus releases a spadix. An indication of sexual maturity of females is the development of brachial photophores to attract mates.

The life cycle is indirect, involving a rumninant as definitive host, snail as intermediate host, and an interval of external phases in water and plants. The sexually mature monoecious self-fertilises in the mammalian rumen, and keep the eggs inside the uterus. Eggs are then released in the host intestine and are expelled along with faeces. Eggs are deposited in water and hatch at optimal temperature of 27 °C in 12–17 days to become ciliated miracidia.

Female queen snakes will be fully sexually mature at three years of age, males at two years. Breeding takes place in the spring and autumn months. If mating was in the autumn, the female can delay giving birth till spring, storing the energy she will need through the months that she will be in a period of brumation. This snake is ovoviviparous, the female giving birth to live young after carrying the eggs within her body.

H. nana is a tapeworm, belonging to the class Cestoidea, phylum Platyhelminthes. It consists of a linear series of sets of reproductive organs of both sexes; each set is referred to as a genitaluim and the area around it is a proglottid. New proglottids are continuously differentiated near the anterior end in a process called strobilation. Each segment moves toward the posterior end as a new one takes its place and, during the process, becomes sexually mature.

Females are pregnant for up to 49 days and give birth to a litter of 2–5 young. Males can potentially become sexually mature at the age of 4 months. Javan mongooses eat mostly insects but are opportunistic feeders and will eat crabs, frogs, spiders, scorpions, snakes, small mammals, birds and eggs. Mongooses can carry leptospirosis,Ishibashi Osamu ; Ahagon Ayako ; Nakamura Masaji ; Morine Nobuya ; Taira Katsuya ; Ogura Go ; Nakachi Manabu ; Kawashima Yoshitsugu ; Nakada Tadashi (2006) Distribution of Leptospira spp.

Mongolian Gerbil Young These rodents are widely used as subjects of testing within laboratories for a plethora of different reasons. These rodents are susceptible to carrying diseases and infections some transmitted sexually, much the subject of many experiments within labs. In the wild, Wild Mongolian gerbils breed during the months of February and October. Males do not become sexually mature for about 70-80 days, while the vaginal opening occurs in females about 33-50 days after birth.

In ambient temperatures between and sexually mature males will chirp, with the acoustical properties of their calling song providing an indicator of past and present health. Females evaluate these songs and move towards the ones that signal the male's good health. When the male senses the presence of a female he will produce a softer courting song. After mating, the female will search for a place to lay her eggs, preferably in warm, damp (though not wet) soil.

Neoteny has been implicated as a developmental cause for a number of behavior changes, as a result of increased brain plasticity and extended childhood. Progenesis (or paedogenesis) can be observed in the axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum). Axolotls reach full sexual maturity while retaining their fins and gills (in other words, still in the juvenile form of their ancestors). They will remain in aquatic environments in this truncated developmental form, rather than moving onto land as other sexually mature salamander species.

Snow leopards become sexually mature at two to three years, and normally live for 15–18 years in the wild. In captivity they can live for up to 25 years. Oestrus typically lasts from five to eight days, and males tend not to seek out another partner after mating, probably because the short mating season does not allow sufficient time. Paired snow leopards mate in the usual felid posture, from 12 to 36 times a day.

The mother prepares a grass nest or similar den, which the young leave after about ten days. Suids are weaned at around three months, and become sexually mature at 18 months. In practice, however, male suids are unlikely to gain access to sows in the wild until they have reached their full physical size, at around four years of age. In all species, the male is significantly larger than the female, and possesses more prominent tusks.

Their life cycle is indirect, requiring a definitive host such as ruminants, an intermediate host such as snail, and a free-living of external phases in water and plants. The sexually mature monoecious self-fertilises in the mammalian rumen, and release the eggs along with faeces. Eggs hatch in water into ciliated miracidia. The miracidia then enters the body of an intermediate host, which are snails belonging to the genera Bulinus, Planorbis, Physa Stagnicola and Pseudosuccinea.

The Hawaiian grouper is a demersal species which is found on coral and rocky reefs at depths between . It is a protogynous hermaphrodite and 50% of the females are sexually mature at , when they are around 6 years old, although it has been recorded in fish at . At a total length of 50% of the females change sex to become males, although this can occur at . The spawning season runs from February to June, peaking in March.

They are herbivores, eating tough grasses or softer leaves, depending on species. The dental formula is similar to that of various other rodents: . Females give birth to two or three furred and active young after a gestation period of 50 to 90 days in most species, or 150 days in the capybara. In most species, they are sexually mature within a few months of birth, although in capybaras, maturity is not reached until around 18 months.

Pups are weaned after 40 to 45 days. They do not attain adult size until about eight weeks of age, and do not become sexually mature until after around two years. Like the majority of bat species, pallid bats are capable of using echolocation while foraging and traveling from their roost sites to foraging grounds. However, they may also opt to not echolocate while foraging, and instead use their large ears to locate insects on the ground.

Suckling, Uganda With baby, Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania Females are sexually mature at seven to eight years old, and males at seven to 10 years. The beginning of a female's ovulation is a signal to the males that she is ready to mate. During ovulation, the skin of the female's anogenital area swells and turns a bright red/pink. The swelling makes it difficult to move and increases the female's chance of microbial or parasitic infection.

Newborn males and females can be distinguished on close examination as the anogenital distance in males is about double that of the female. From the age of about 10 days, females have five pairs of mammary glands and nipples; males have no nipples. When sexually mature, the most striking and obvious difference is the presence of testicles on the males. These are large compared to the rest of the body and can be retracted into the body.

The species is sexually dimorphic in that the female does not have such prominent bone fangs. It becomes sexually mature while its body is still not fully developed; scientists speculate that this may happen because younger fish were more successful reproductively. Ichthyologist Dr Ralf Britz, who named the fish after Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula, stated that the dracula fish "is one of the most extraordinary vertebrates discovered in the last few decades."Devlin, Kate (2009-03-11).

The storm petrel is sexually mature at age 4–5 years, with the Mediterranean subspecies typically breeding a year earlier than the Atlantic form. Breeding happens in colonies and normally begins in late May or June. Pairs have a repeated nocturnal display flight in which the male chases the female, the chase being accompanied by flight calls. Some near-adult birds may pair up and occupy a hole at the same time, prior to breeding in the following year.

Sometimes first-year merlins (especially males) will serve as a "nest helper" for an adult pair. More than half—often all or almost all—eggs of a clutch survive to hatching, and at least two-thirds of the hatched young fledge. However, as noted above, in years with little supplementary food only 1 young in 3 may survive to fledging. The merlin becomes sexually mature at one year of age and usually attempts to breed right away.

Anemonia sulcata has a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae, which inhabit the tissues and provide energy for the sea anemone. It is dioecious, with individuals becoming sexually mature when they weigh about and the basal disc measures about across. There are no gonads, and the germ cells develop inside the mesenteries and break through the epithelium to enter the body cavity and thence move into the water column. At this stage, the oocytes already contain symbiotic zooxanthellae.

Research shows that there was much variation in the number of instars, the time for development, the width of the cephalothorax, and the mass varied with different dietary patterns. Instars refer to the phases between two molting periods when an invertebrate animal develops into sexual maturity. The females that were well-fed actually needed more moltings to become sexually mature, needed less time for sexual development, and were found to be heavier than those that were starved long-term.

The Atlantic puffin is sexually mature at the age of 4–5 years. The birds are colonial nesters, excavating burrows on grassy clifftops or reusing existing holes, and on occasion may nest in crevices and among rocks and scree. It is in competition with other birds and animals for burrows. It can excavate its own hole or move into a pre-existing system dug by a rabbit, and has been known to peck and drive off the original occupant.

George has been described as "a thumbnail- size whorl of dark brown and tan." Although typically referred to using the pronoun "he", George was actually a hermaphrodite. He became sexually mature in 2012, but could not reproduce without a mate. While George was alive, it became a tradition for snail researchers to stop at the spot where the last A. apexfulva were found and scan the trees with binoculars, in the hope of finding him a mate.

Sexual maturity is the capability of an organism to reproduce. It may be considered synonymous with adulthood, but, in humans, puberty encompasses the process of sexual maturation and adulthood is based on cultural definitions. Most multicellular organisms are unable to sexually reproduce at birth (or germination), and depending on the species, it may be days, weeks, or years until their bodies are able to do so. Also, certain cues may cause the organism to become sexually mature.

The young, numbering between eight and 40, emerge from their sacs very shortly after birth, and have an average length around . Young snakes almost triple their length and increase their weight 18-fold in their first year of life, and are sexually mature when they reach SVL (snoutvent length) of for males or for females. Females can breed at around 31 months of age, while males can slightly earlier. Red- bellied black snakes can live up to 25 years.

Adult dragonflies emerge between May and early July in Great Britain; the exact timing depends on the latitude and weather. When the larvae have developed sufficiently and are ready to emerge as adults, they climb out of the water up a plant stem and shed their exoskeleton one final time. Males become sexually mature 4–12 days after emergence, and females a few days later; can generally be seen during their "flight period" from April till September.

Pak Breeder is analogous to a human adult: sexually mature, self-sufficient (in later writings) and provides immediate care for the children. To the Pak, the Breeder stage, though capable of space travel, is not deemed fully sentient; Breeders, to a large extent, rely on Protectors for long-term survival. Earlier Niven stories describe the breeder as "just intelligent enough to swing a club or throw a stone." Pak Protector is not analogous to any human form.

By the time they are sexually mature adults they have reached the bathypelagic zone, below 2000m and it is here that mating takes place. In mature males the arms are modified, they are broad closest to the head and the protective membranes are expanded. The protective membranes do not extend towards the tips of the arms. The suckers on the arms are greatly reduced in size in at least two series on arms II and III.

Medieval women were assumed to be far more insatiable than men and a woman's lust would have been considered her ultimate sin. She was believed to receive far more pleasure from a sexual encounter than men and reach her sexual readiness far earlier than men. Perceived as more sexually mature than males, women were expected to conduct themselves to higher standards than men, leading to a double standard of sexual morality.Vern L. Bollough and James A. Brundage, eds.

The breeding season of the desert pupfish typically occurs during early spring and into winter when water temperatures exceed about 20 °C. Under conditions of abundant food and suitable temperature, the desert pupfish may become sexually mature as early as six weeks of age. Though they may start to breed during their first summer, most pupfish do not reproduce until their second. Breeding behavior includes both territorial arena-breeding (high aggression) and consort-pair breeding (low aggression).

The female lays up to 220 eggs singly over a period of weeks in crevices and under stones and possibly buried in sand. She forms her mobile cloaca into a tube and turns on her back to deposit them in suitable locations. The larvae take six to 15 months before metamorphosis depending on the water temperature. In 1999, sexually mature adults were reported to have been found with the vestiges of gills, suggesting the species may exhibit paedomorphosis.

The little forest bat is one of the most commonly observed bats in south-eastern Australia, it is found in a variety of habitats including Eucalypt woodlands and forests as well as in rural, semi-rural and some urban areas. It is an insectivore and roosts in tree hollows. Females become sexually mature in their first year and males in their second year. It is assumed the males wake from torpor and mate with the females during winter.

Male rhinoceros iguanas, unlike other members of the genus Cyclura, reach sexual maturity at four to five years of age. Females become sexually mature at two to three years of age. Male rhinoceros iguanas are territorial and the most aggressive males will have the largest range of territory. Mating takes place at the beginning of, or just prior to, the first rainy season of the year (May to June) and lasts for two to three weeks.

Upeneus moluccensis prefers sandy or muddy substrates where it searches for its food, mainly benthic crustaceans using chemoreceptors on its barbels. As they grow larger fish form a greater part of their diet. In the Mediterranean they spawn from late July up to September, the spawn and larvae are planktonic, settling to a benthic habit at 4–5 cm in length and becoming sexually mature when they are about a year old, c. 10 cm in length.

Bartman (2001), 4 A bride's hair was parted with a hasta recurva or hasta caelibaris, a bent iron spearhead and crowned with flowers. In addition to ceremonies hairstyle defined the age of a woman. There was a marked difference in hair acceptable for preadolescent girls and sexually mature women. Preadolescent girls would often have long hair cascading down the back where as women would have equally long hair but it would be controlled through wrapping and braiding.

Spores germinate within a few days and form a one cell layer thick, 'heart-shaped' prothallus. In ferns, the time required for the prothallus to sexually mature may require several months to several years of development. The male antheridia matures and releases its gametes earlier than the female archegonia in an effort to avoid self-fertilisation. The prothallus can reproduce asexually through the release of gemmae which on germination produce rhizoids, filaments and antheridia or more gemmae.

The pupal stage lasts between 2–3 weeks but can take up to several weeks, and begins late May to early November with larvae creating a small chamber within their tunnel. Adults emerge early spring to late summer with the majority emerging October to December. Newly emerged adults will remain in their pupal cells until their integument has hardened. Once they emerge, they become sexually mature around four days later (although this varies depending on environmental conditions).

This stable pair bond relationship seems to have allowed the gibbons to decrease their interbirth interval, the length of time between births. Their two-year interbirth interval is shorter than that of most gibbon species and coincides with the blooming patterns of fruits on the Hainan Islands. The Hainan gibbon also has a shorter gestation period than other gibbon species. It has been observed that not all sexually mature females in the wild are breeding, however, the reasons for this are unclear.

During mating season, males lower their body mass and use their body fat reserves to help fuel the energetic costs of reproduction. Gestation lasts from 20–31 days, and results in the birth of up to 11 young, although four or five are more typical. They develop their fur by 16 days, and open their eyes after around 3 weeks. They begin to leave the nest after around 30 days, and are sexually mature by the time they complete their second hibernation.

Birds are sexually mature after one year, and the maximum known age is 6.5 years. In South Africa, a few records of hybridization with the white-faced whistling duck have been noted in the wild; in most parts of southern Africa, the two species breed at different times, bicolor during the dry season (April to September) and viduata during the rains (October to March). Hybridization in captivity is more frequent but limited to other species in the genus Dendrocygna.Kear (2005) p. 188.

The spongetip octopus has gelatinous skin with deeply webbed arms bearing a single row of suckers. The common English name refers to the spongy tips of the mature male's arms; these are thought to have some reproductive function. Like other members of the genus Eledone, this octopus has an ink sac and no fins on the mantle. The male reaches sexual maturity at a mantle length of around 30 mm, while females are sexually mature at a mantle length of 60 mm.

He finds commonality between the slow growth of mating signals in centrosaurines and the extended adolescence of animals whose social structures are ranked hierarchies founded on age-related differences. In these sorts of groups young males are typically sexually mature for several years before actually beginning to breed, when their mating signals are most fully developed. Females, by contrast do not have such an extended adolescence. Other researchers who support the idea of ceratopsid herding have speculated that these associations were seasonal.

According to observations in several regions, all male and female pod members participate in the care of the young. Males sexually mature at the age of 15, but do not typically reproduce until age 21. Wild males live around 29 years on average, with a maximum of about 60 years. One male, known as Old Tom, was reportedly spotted every winter between the 1840s and 1930 off New South Wales, Australia. This would have made him up to 90 years old.

Within the oligochaete, the parasite eggs hatch and develop into second- and third-stage larvae. When a fish feeds on the infected oligochaete, it becomes the second intermediate host and the parasite develops into a fourth-stage larva. Finally, when a wading bird feeds on the infected fish, it becomes the definitive or final host and Eustrongylides becomes sexually mature. The parasite becomes an adult within 3 to 5 hours after infection and sheds eggs within 14 to 23 days after infection.

The ivory-marked beetle, Eburia quadrigeminata, may live up to 40 years inside the hardwoods on which the larva feeds. As with all endopterygotes, beetle larvae pupate, and from these pupae emerge fully formed, sexually mature adult beetles, or imagos. Pupae never have mandibles (they are adecticous). In most pupae, the appendages are not attached to the body and are said to be exarate; in a few beetles (Staphylinidae, Ptiliidae etc.) the appendages are fused with the body (termed as obtect pupae).

In 2008, the median age of sexual maturity in males had risen to 5.9 years. Females of the species also exhibit low reproductive ability after becoming sexually mature, instead increasing with age and their sexual maturity has varied to a lesser extent than the male population across the years. A small percentage of golden tilefish is known to be intersexual, having opposite nonfunctional sex tissues. Male tilefish specimens also inhibited a cavity that came from ovarian tissue and sperm sinuses.

In waters around the United Kingdom Pecten maximus become sexually mature at around 2–3 years old and when they reach 80 to 90 mm in shell length. Where they are not exploited, they may live for more than 20 years and reach shell lengths of more than 200mm. Scallops in shallow water grow faster than those in deeper water; the growth halts in winter and starts again in spring, producing concentric growth rings which are used to age the scallops.

Her career included eleven trips to the Antarctic, more than fifty published scientific papers, and many presentations of research findings. In the 1977–78 and 1978-79 summers, McWhinnie succeeded in keeping krill alive in a flow-through seawater tank. During the observation, they found that krill become smaller and less sexually mature in appearance after spawning, a phenomenon called "regression". She determined this was a result of the animals having to swim constantly with limited food supply in winter.

The spawning migration begins in August, although first maturation fish tend to start migrating as early as June. The round-fish experience their first spawning normally at age seven. These species do not spawn annually, but it is common for first year spawners to spawn the following year. After sexually mature round-fish reach the tributary system, overall growth slows down and annual growth increments decrease from 55–65 mm to 40–45 mm due to a decrease in food intake.

These SY males are sexually mature and able to breed, but their morphology differs greatly from the older, after second year (ASY) males. Various studies have looked into this delayed plumage maturation (DPM) and found that the DPM in SY males reduces aggression from ASY males. Female mimicry in birds was first found in European-pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca. When a dull-coloured male is in the area, mature males reduce their aggressiveness and behave as if the intruder is a female.

Walleye epidermal hyperplasia lesions are characteristically broad, flat, translucent plaques that range in size (2–50 mm in diameter). Lesions are most often observed in sexually mature fish although transmission studies have shown that fingerling fish can be infected using cell-free virus components extracted from lesions. Multiple growths are also known to coalesce into larger lesions. Seasonal observations of the fish by scientists and sportsmen show a high incidence of the condition during the late fall, winter, and early spring months.

Depressions 5 to 12 inches in diameter served as nests. Fish will vibrate together over a depression for 5 to 6 seconds, rest for 30 seconds and then repeat the cycle for about 5 minutes and then return to the pool, this cycle is repeated every 10 minutes. Both sexes are sexually mature after 1 year of life. One year old females have a fecundity of about 600 eggs and 3-year-old females have an average fecundity of 1,175.

Bow-riding dolphins off Ashdod, Israel Females tend to reach sexual maturity when they have grown to 85% of their final size. It is at this point that the distribution of resources in their bodies becomes more focused on their sexual organs, rather than their physical size. This is usually when they are approximately 12 to 15 years of age. Like many other animals, female short-beaked common dolphins are considered sexually mature when they have ovulated at least once.

An adult dromedary camel can weigh up to six times as much as a llama, so the hybrid needs to be produced by artificial insemination. Insemination of a female llama with sperm from a male dromedary camel has been the only successful combination. Inseminating a female camel with llama sperm has not produced viable offspring. The first cama showed signs of becoming sexually mature at age four, when he showed a desire to breed with a female guanaco and a female llama.

Since they can no longer bear young of their own, these females invest in the current young, allowing them to feed even though they are not their own. Short-finned pilot whales grow more slowly than long-finned pilot whales. For the short-finned pilot whale, females become sexually mature at 9 years old and males at about 13–16 years. For the long-finned pilot whale, females reach maturity at around eight years and males at around 12 years.

A long-haired male golden hamster Hamsters are very territorial and intolerant of each other; attacks against each other are commonplace. Exceptions do occur, usually when a female and male meet when the female is in heat, but even so, the female may attack the male after mating. Even siblings, once mature, may attack one another. In captivity, babies are separated from their mother and by sex after four weeks, as they sexually mature at four to five weeks old.

The size restriction is important because of the way in which seahorses become sexually mature. In flat-faced seahorses, sexumaturity is better predicted by size than by age. For example, populations in the South China Sea and North China Sea both matured at the same size, but those found in the South China Sea were 3 months old while those found in the North China Sea were 5 months old.Cai, N., Xu, Q., Yu, F., Wu, X.& Sun, G. 1984a.

The native range of the coastal cutthroat trout extends south from the southern coastline of the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska to the Eel River in Northern California. Coastal cutthroat trout are resident in tributary streams and rivers of the Pacific basin and are rarely found more than from the ocean. Adults migrate from the ocean to spawn in fresh water. Juveniles migrate to the sea where they feed and become sexually mature before returning to fresh water to overwinter and spawn.

A flatback sea turtle is sexually mature anywhere between 7–50 years of age, and an adult female will nest every two to three years. Mating occurs while the male and female are out at sea; therefore, the males will never return to shore after they hatch. The flatback nesting sites can only be found along the coast of Australia within the slopes of the dunes. A female will return to the same beach for her subsequent clutches within the same nesting season.

Various specimens of Dysalotosaurus are known, all representing animals that were not yet sexually mature at the time of their deaths. Ontogenetic studies demonstrate typical aging trends, such as a lengthening of the snout and relative shrinking of the orbit. Differences in dentition as the animals aged also suggest a change from an omnivorous diet early in life to fully herbivorous feeding habits as an adult. This switch reflects the general evolutionary trend towards obligate herbivory among iguanodontians and other ornithopods.

Denning sites include hollow tree trunks, along stream banks and the abandoned earths of other animals. By the age of six weeks, the pups distance themselves from the den, and reach full size at the age of one year, becoming sexually mature two years later. Using long-term data on red wolf individuals of known pedigree, it was found that inbreeding among first-degree relatives was rare. A likely mechanism for avoidance of inbreeding is independent dispersal trajectories from the natal pack.

It is considered near threatened by BirdLife International (and consequently IUCN) due to the widespread deforestation of the Amazon. This parrot was initially believed to be a juvenile of the vulturine parrot due to the orange coloration of its bald head as opposed to the black of the vulturine. However, when it was discovered that the individuals were sexually mature, they were described as a new species. In reality, juveniles of both species have feathered, greenish heads quite unlike those of the adults.

Least darters are a short-lived species; in Minnesota, they live 2–3 yr. By early January, the male's genital papilla begins to swell, and by late March or early April, the testes are enlarged and sexually mature. They also develop lateral flaps of skin on their pelvic fins as early as late January, and by mid-March their breeding colors are evident. The female's genital papilla is also enlarged up to the spawning period, but her color and pattern changes very little.

Social behavior makes up a very small part of the activity budget, though it has monogamous mating system with the offspring living with the parents. It sleeps during the day, rolled up in a ball in hidden parts of trees above the ground, often on branches, twigs, palm fronds, or lianas. The species is polyoestrous, usually giving birth to a single offspring after a gestation period of 192 days. The young disperses between 16 and 27 months, generally when it is sexually mature.

The males' genitals create a musk while females create this musk from glands in their elbows, this scent helps mating occur. The gestation period lasts about seven months, and they are dependent upon the mother until they are six months of age, becoming sexually mature at two years of age. Breeding occurs once a year, they produce one offspring, and will have maybe one to two more in their lifetime. Aardvarks are myrmecophagous, feeding almost exclusively on termites and ants.

Males’ sexual maturation is triggered by an increased proportion of light in the photoperiod, such that they are sexually mature when they colonize the field when the crop reaches leaf development. More specifically, a day length of 16h is required for the beetles to terminate their reproductive diapause. An optimal day length of 18h is found to induce diapause termination. Females are still in reproductive diapause when they colonize the field once crops reach flowering stage and day temperature reach 20 °C.

Greenside darters typically live for three to five years, grow to a maximum of 132 mm standard length and sexually mature at one to two years of age. Greenside darters are reproductively active from February to April in the Midwest and Southeastern United States. Spawning occurs over algae- or moss- covered rocks in deep, swift riffles that are guarded by males that vigorously defended against intruders. Females linger in pools below the riffle and move into a male's territory when ready to spawn.

They are also used for meat, especially due to the rapid development of their kids. The growth of Murcia-Granada kids can be improved by crossing females of this breed with a meat breed (Boer goats) These goats reproduce quickly, since they do not have a particular season for breeding, and the females can come into heat at any time of the year. Usually two kids are born per breeding, and they become sexually mature around 7 to 8 months of age.

Males and females are visually identical. They do, however undergo significant changes in coloration and to a lesser degree shape as they mature. Juvenile king angelfish are primarily yellow, with fins rimmed with iridescent blue, blue striping towards the posterior of their bodies, and an orange mask around the eye. Sexually mature king angelfish, on the other hand, have mostly brown or blue bodies (depending on the light) with the same blue rimming around the fins and a yellow tail.

Some breeding still occurs on Pulau Rambut; a few breeding pairs were observed here at Jakarta Bay in 2014. Young captive milky storks can become sexually mature from three months of age, but breeders at this age appear precocious and inexperienced; so that actual breeding age is probably slightly older. In its natural habitat, young storks begin to leave their natal breeding grounds at 3–4 months of age. Especially in captivity, the milky stork is further found to occasionally breed with the painted stork.

The spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata), the only species of the genus Clemmys, is a small, semi-aquatic turtle that reaches a carapace length of Spotted Turtle , Natural Resources Canada upon adulthood. Their broad, smooth, low dark-colored upper shell, or carapace, ranges in its exact colour from black to a bluish black with a number of tiny yellow round spots. The spotting patterning extends from the head, to the neck and out onto the limbs. Sexually mature males have a concave plastron and a long, thick tail.

Groupings of crocodiles like this can include crocodiles of various sizes, but seldom of less than , lest a cannibalistic large specimen launch an attack. Like all crocodiles, they are sexually dimorphic, with the males up to 30% larger than the females, though the difference is considerably less compared to some species, like the saltwater crocodile. Male Nile crocodiles are about longer on average at sexual maturity and grow more so than females after becoming sexually mature, especially expanding in bulk after exceeding in length.Leslie, A.J. (1997).

The river chub is a robust minnow, dark olivaceous above to dusky yellow below, with orange-red fins, large scales, a large slightly subterminal mouth, and a small barbel (whisker-like organ) at the corners of the jaw. During the breeding season, sexually mature males develop pinkish-purple coloration, and swollen heads with tubercles between the eyes and snout tip (they are sometimes called hornyheads).Etnier, David A and Wayne C Starnes. The Fishes of Tennessee, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993), pp. 196-199.

A baby bog turtle held in a palm alt=This shaded bog turtle specimen is resting in the palm of a person's hand, highlighting its petite size. Bog turtles are sexually mature when they reach between 8 and 11 years of age (both sexes). They mate in the spring after emerging from hibernation, in a copulation session that usually lasts for 5–20 minutes, typically during the afternoon, and may occur on land or in the water. It begins with the male recognizing the female's sex.

Eggs laid in the environment hatch into larvae, which immediately seek out a host in which to attach and feed. Fed larvae molt into unfed nymphs that remain on the host. After engorging on the host's blood, the nymphs molt into sexually mature adults that remain on the host in order to feed and mate. Once a female is both fed and ready to lay eggs, only then does she drop off the host in search of a suitable area to deposit her eggs.

Brown noddy nest on stump of Casuarina equisetifolia Terns are normally monogamous, although trios or female-female pairings have been observed in at least three species. Most terns breed annually and at the same time of year, but some tropical species may nest at intervals shorter than 12 months or asynchronously. Most terns become sexually mature when aged three, although some small species may breed in their second year. Some large sea terns, including the sooty and bridled terns, are four or older when they first breed.

Females become sexually mature at about three years of age and can then become pregnant; in comparison, males reach sexual maturity when they are about four years old, although they can produce sperm as early as two years.Martin and Handasyde, pp. 66–69. While the chest glands can be functional as early as 18 months of age, males do not begin scent-marking behaviours until they reach sexual maturity. Because the offspring have a long dependent period, female koalas usually breed in alternate years.

Minimum size at sexual maturity is between to total length and gutted weight, though smaller sexually mature individuals have been found. Holothuria mexicana spawns throughout the year but has peak spawning periods that varies with geography, which may linked to temperature. Spawning occurs from May to July in Panama, August to September in Florida, and September to October in Curaçao. During spawning, females forcefully expel all their eggs into the water in a single burst from their gonopore (the opening where gametes are released).

The American Rabbit Breeders' Association (ARBA) recommends delaying breeding of female rabbits until they reach the senior weight range. For Flemish Giants, this is , and a typical rabbit will reach this weight when they are about 9 months to one year. A Flemish Giant can take up to 1.5 years to reach their maximum weight and a breeder should wait until the rabbit is slightly over a year old before breeding. Females and males can become sexually mature at 4 months and 8 days.

Sun bears tend to remain solitary but sometimes occur in pairs (such as a mother and her cub). They do not seem to hibernate, possibly because food resources are available the whole year throughout the range. Being omnivores, sun bears have a broad diet including ants, bees, beetles, honey, termites and plant material such as seeds and several kinds of fruits; vertebrates such as birds and deer are also eaten occasionally. They breed throughout the year; individuals become sexually mature at two to four years of age.

Wing buds of a nymph Immature termites on the sexual, or reproductive, line are called nymphs and can be distinguished from workers by the presence of wing buds. Under natural conditions, the work that they do in the nest is negligible compared to that done by workers. They can feed themselves, but there is debate over how long (over how many instars) they retain this ability. Alates (from the Latin ālātus, "having wings") are winged, sexually mature adults that are capable of dispersal and outbreeding.

B. tyroni males exhibit behavior termed cue-lure, meaning that they are strongly attracted to a specific scent. While this scent is artificially made, it is closely related to compounds occurring in nature. Male B. tyroni respond most greatly to the lure in the morning, likely because this is their peak of foraging time; however, an evolutionary reason for the cue-lure is not fully known. Cue-lure is only exhibited in sexually mature males, indicating that mate finding is related to the cue-lure behavior.

Mane development is related to age: older males have more extensive manes than younger ones; manes continue to grow up to the age of four to five years, long after lions become sexually mature. Males living in the Kenyan highlands above elevations of develop heavier manes than lions in the more humid and warmer lowlands of eastern and northern Kenya. Average ambient temperature, nutrition and testosterone influence the colour and size of the mane. Its length is an indicator for age and fighting ability of the lion.

Trichopodus (formerly included in Trichogaster) is a genus of tropical freshwater labyrinth fish of the gourami family found in Southeast Asia. Gouramis of the genus Trichopodus are closely related to those of Trichogaster (formerly Colisa); species of both genera have long, thread-like pelvic fins (known as "feelers" in the aquarium trade) used to sense the environment. However, Trichopodus species have shorter dorsal fin base and, when sexually mature, are much larger, with the largest, the snakeskin gourami (T. pectoralis), capable of reaching a length of over .

A small black blotch id found on the bony flap covering the gills. The fish have two dorsal fins, two small detached spines in front of the rear fin and a deeply forked tail fin. At between two and four years of age the Silver trevally become sexually mature and is able to reproduce. Spawning happens in estuaries and in deeper waters between spring to autumn over an extended period, the females can produce between 50,000 and 200.000 eggs over the course of a season.

Spawning takes place in all months of the year, peaking in April and May. For most of the year they spawn in small groups but during the April and May peak season they form large spawning aggregations. The eggs and young are pelagic and there is no parental care. Females can become sexually mature at 2 years old but 4 years old is more normal, They are protogynous hermaphrodites and between the ages of 5 and 14 years old the females change sex into males.

A captive axolotl A sexually mature adult axolotl, at age 18–24 months, ranges in length from , although a size close to is most common and greater than is rare. Axolotls possess features typical of salamander larvae, including external gills and a caudal fin extending from behind the head to the vent.San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) 7 August 1887, page 9, authored by Yda Addis Their heads are wide, and their eyes are lidless. Their limbs are underdeveloped and possess long, thin digits.

Adult C. macellaria are considered to be medium-sized flies because they are about 6 to 9 mm in size and appear bright metallic blue-green to blueish purple in color. These adults typically spend one to two days maturing after leaving the pupae stage. Within four days of emerging from the pupa stage, the adult C. macellaria become sexually mature and start looking for mates. The males will typically mate rapidly and will spend most of their time eating nearby vegetation and nectar from flowers.

Whale penis (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) Common minke whales are sexually mature at about six to eight years of age for females and about six to seven years for males. Females are promiscuous. After a gestation period of 10 months, a single calf is born – only one out of 79 mature females during a study of minke whales off Iceland had twin fetuses, an female caught in July 2006 which had a male and a female. The calf is weaned after a period of six months.

S. burrus becomes sexually mature between lengths of for females and for males, with this occurring normally by the end of the first year of life. Juveniles inhabit shallow protected waters, often in estuaries, mangroves or protected bays, remaining there for about three months before migrating to deeper waters between depth when they are around in length. This may be to reduce competition with other inshore sillaginid species such as S. vittata and S. bassensis, whose juvenile stages occupy the same shallow areas as S. burrus.

Adult females are almost always immobile (apart from mealybugs) and permanently attached to the plant on which they are feeding. They secrete a waxy coating for defence, making them resemble reptilian or fish scales, and giving them their common name. The group is extremely sexually dimorphic; female scale insects, unusually for Hemiptera, retain the immature external morphology even when sexually mature, a condition known as neoteny. Adult females are pear-shaped, elliptical or circular, with no wings, and usually no constriction separating the head from the body.

After about two weeks, they rejoin the herd. The calves' spots begin to fade after around six weeks, and they attain the full adult colour by the end of their first year. They become sexually mature during their second or third year, although males are rarely successful in the rut until they are at least five years old. Thorold's deer have been reported to live up to 21 years in captivity, but probably do not survive for more than 12 years in the wild.

Eastern heather voles breed from June to July, and produce litters of two to eight young after a gestation period of 21 days. The young are born hairless and blind, developing fur by day six, crawling by day eight, and opening their eyes by day fourteen of life. They are weaned by day seventeen, but do not reach the full adult size for over three months. Females become sexually mature four to six weeks after birth, but males do not breed during their first summer.

Once the pupa has completed its metamorphosis, a sexually mature adult emerges. The Lepidoptera have, over millions of years, evolved a wide range of wing patterns and coloration ranging from drab moths akin to the related order Trichoptera, to the brightly colored and complex-patterned butterflies. Accordingly, this is the most recognized and popular of insect orders with many people involved in the observation, study, collection, rearing of, and commerce in these insects. A person who collects or studies this order is referred to as a lepidopterist.

Females are usually sexually mature at two months of age and the gestation period is typically 20 days. Campbell's dwarf hamster is crepuscular, along with all species of Phodopus and is active throughout the year. Campbell's dwarf hamsters are omnivores, and so feed on both plant and insect material. Campbell's dwarf hamster inhabits burrows with four to six horizontal and vertical tunnels in the steppes and semi deserts of central Asia, the Altai mountains, autonomous areas of Tuva and the Hebei province in northeastern China.

The endogenous volatile, 6-oxo-1-nonanol, produced by male B. carambolae is also used a deterrent for predators, such as several species of gecko. The production of this endogenous compound is age-related. The gecko is an avid consumer of immature carambola larvae, however their consumption greatly decreases when it comes to sexually mature male B. carambolae. This effect is also seen on female B. carambolae, who do not naturally create 6-oxo-1-nonanol, when extracted male volatiles are topically applied to the thorax.

Based on the seasonal reproductive cycle of the species, ovary development of the females occurs from March to September, while the testes development of the males occurs between March and August. For both sexes, the maximal development occurs during April and May. Using the gonadosomatic index, the minimum standard length (SL) at sexual maturity was 89.7 mm for the females and 81.4 mm for males. The size at which 50% of individuals were sexually mature was 104 mm SL in females and 92 mm SL in males.

Imagines (sexually mature, reproductive stage) have a wingspan of 2.5–3.5 inches (63–88 mm). This species is sexually dimorphic, males having bright yellow forewings, body, and legs, while females have reddish-brown forewings, body, and legs. The males also have much bigger plumose (feathery) antennae than the females. Both have one big black to bluish eyespot with some white in the center, on each hindwing, a defense mechanism meant to frighten off potential predators, especially when the moth is sitting in the head-down position.

Their propensity for unruly behavior exceeds that of captive skunks, and they are even less trustworthy when allowed to roam freely. Because of their intelligence and nimble forelimbs, even inexperienced raccoons are easily capable of unscrewing jars, uncorking bottles and opening door latches, with more experienced specimens having been recorded to open door knobs. Sexually mature raccoons often show aggressive natural behaviors such as biting during the mating season. Neutering them at around five or six months of age decreases the chances of aggressive behavior developing.

It lives in a wide range of continental shelf environments including estuaries, bays, reefs and offshore seamounts, living both pelagically and demersally. The green jack is a predatory species, preying on a variety of fish, crustaceans and cephalopods, as well as zooplankton. Most fish are sexually mature by the time they attain 38 cm, with spawning occurring between May and October. The species is of high importance to fisheries throughout its range, caught by pelagic trawls, a variety of netting methods and hook and line.

V. griseus goes into hibernation from about September to April. In April is a mass exodus from their hibernation, and they become most active between May and July. During the middle of the day, the lizards mainly stay in their burrows and only come to the desert surface to search for food. The monitor lizards require approximately 3 to 4 full hibernation periods (years) to reach their full size (about 55–65 cm excluding their tails) and at least 3 hibernation periods before they become sexually mature.

The territories are only held against members of the same sex, so those of males and females may overlap. Mating takes place in water. Eurasian otters are nonseasonal breeders (males and females will breed at any time of the year) and it has been found that their mating season is most likely determined simply by the otters' reproductive maturity and physiological state. Female otters become sexually mature between 18 and 24 months old and the average age of first breeding is found to be years.

Standing heat is a reflexive response that is stimulated when the female is in contact with the saliva of a sexually mature boar. Androstenol is one of the pheromones produced in the submaxillary salivary glands of boars that will trigger the female's response. The female cervix contains a series of five interdigitating pads, or folds, that will hold the boar's corkscrew-shaped penis during copulation. Females have bicornuate uteruses and two conceptuses must be present in both uterine horns for pregnancy to be established.

There are 60-67 scales in the lateral line. The flanks are marked with diffuse, irregular brown bars and blotches and there are wide dark brown margins to the soft rayed part of the dorsal fin, anal fin and caudal fins. It also has two indistinct, light brown bars which radiate from the eye to the rear edge of the gill cover in non sexually mature fish. There are no dark spots on the head, body and fins of this fish at any stage of its life.

Longnose gar have an average lifespan of 15–20 years with a maximum reported age of 39. This long lifespan allows the female to sexually mature around six years old. Males mature sexually as early as two years of age. Longnose gar are sexually dimorphic; the females are larger than the males in body length, weight, and fin length. They generally have a clutch size close to 30,000, depending on the weight to length ratio of the females; larger females bear larger clutch sizes.

It is often difficult to superficially distinguish between male and female bigfin reef squids. Some authors say that females are generally smaller than males, but this distinction is not observed in other studies. Closer examination of sexually mature specimens, however, will usually distinguish males from females by the presence of the hectocotylus on the fourth left arm in males, and the nidamental glands and the pale ovaries within the mantle in females. Males also purportedly show a more conspicuous pattern of transverse streaks on their dorsal side.

The young begin to develop fur at two to four days, their ears open at three to five days, and their eyes open at 12 to 14. The young begin to eat solid food as soon as they are able to see, but are not fully weaned for about three or four weeks, leaving the nest shortly thereafter. They reach the full adult size at eight to nine weeks, by which time they are already sexually mature. They have been reported to live up to 15 months.

When the herd is at rest, all members share the responsibility of keeping watch for danger. The stallion is usually on the edge of the group, to defend the herd if needed. There is usually one dominant mature stallion for every mixed-sex herd of horses. The dominant stallion in the herd will tolerate both sexes of horses while young, but once they become sexually mature, often as yearlings or two-year-olds, the stallion will drive both colts and fillies from the herd.

The maximum age for males is around 23 months and 25 months for females. Sexual maturity typically occurs by 12 months of age for most individuals with the exception of a few that will become sexually mature by 24 months of age. The maximum age of a little over 24 months and sexual maturity occurring in most individuals by 12 months of age, suggests no more than two spawning seasons for any individual. Spawning occurs in 16-25 °C waters in late spring/early summer.

This means that their juvenile plumage is not the same as their sexually mature adult plumage. When leaving the nest, the juvenile plumage of Cuban orioles is mostly olive. Yearling plumage is similar to the fledgling plumage but with black feathers around the throat and beak. Along with most other tropical orioles, the Cuban oriole has very little sexual dimorphism due to the fact that male and female Cuban orioles look very similar and it is likely impossible to confirm their sex without testing their DNA.

The adult is defined as a sexually mature female or male, and has four pairs of legs. These similar stages (or instars) are in a sequence known as an incomplete metamorphosis. The potential reproductive capacity of a female mite is low compared to ticks because the eggs are large relative to the small female. However, the survival of larvae laid on their hosts or in nests of their hosts is high, and the life-cycle is short, so mite populations can expand rapidly under favorable conditions.

Sphyraena chrysotenia is now the most common species of barracuda caught by artisanal fisheries in Lebanon, outnumbering the other landed species by 70%. It can be caught in considerable quantities in inshore waters using purse-seine nets, gillnets and by trawling. It was first recorded in the Gulf of Gabes, Tunisia in 2002 and now forms an important part of the total fishery. In the Gulf of Suez studies showed indications of overexploitation of the stock as fish being landed were too small to be sexually mature.

Electroejaculation is a procedure used to obtain semen samples from sexually mature male mammals. The procedure is used for breeding programs and research purposes in various species, as well as in the treatment of ejaculatory dysfunction in human males. This procedure is used frequently with large mammals, particularly bulls and some domestic animals, as well as humans who have certain types of anejaculation. Electroejaculation has also been used for cryoconservation of animal genetic resources where one would collect semen and stored in low temperatures with the intent of conserving genetic material and future revival.

Basking Galapagos land iguanas become sexually mature anywhere between eight and fifteen years of age, depending on which island they are from. Mating season also varies between islands, but soon after mating, the females migrate to sandy areas to nest, laying 2–20 eggs in a burrow about deep. The eggs hatch anywhere from 90 to 125 days later. On South Plaza Island, where the territories of marine iguanas and land iguanas overlap, the two sometimes interbreed, resulting in a hybrid iguana that shows a mixture of features from each species.

Hypothesised ontogenic development of Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum Possible neonate sized centrosaurine fossils have been documented in the scientific literature. Research indicates that centrosaurines did not achieve fully developed mating signals until nearly fully grown. Scott D. Sampson finds commonality between the slow growth of mating signals in centrosaurines and the extended adolescence of animals whose social structures are ranked hierarchies founded on age-related differences. In these sorts of groups young males are typically sexually mature for several years before actually beginning to breed, when their mating signals are most fully developed.

Edmund Narraway returns to his family home, an old rectory in the north of England, for the cremation of his mother, Lydia. His brother, Otto, probably drunk, starts giggling during the service, and has to be taken outside. Edmund is disgusted rather than scandalised, yet he immediately finds himself fascinated by Otto's daughter, his own niece, who is now a teenager and, for the first time since Edmund last saw her, sexually mature. After the service Isabel, Otto's apparently neurotic wife, attempts to involve Edmund in her small and frustrated life.

The bush hyrax has been recorded to live over 10 years in the wild, with an average lifespan of 12 years. Males and females reach sexually maturity between 16 and 17 months of age. Sexually mature females breed annually and breeding seasons vary based on geographic location. Peak birth rates among colonies in Kenya occur between February and March, in Zimbabwe March, and in the Serengeti, Tanzania between December and January. Breeding seasons are 7–8 months prior to when these peak birth rates have been observed based on length of gestation.

The northeast African mole-rat is a fossorial species and lives a solitary life in a network of burrows. African mole-rats mainly use their bulging teeth, nose, and top of their head to dig channels underground. Some researchers found that their olfactory systems have increased surface area and are highly complex, an evolved trait that may have occurred due to their lifestyle of living in a community with less individuals. Female mole-rats become sexually mature at about 120 days and the average time between successive litters is around 173 days.

Additionally, a 49 millimeter-long (1.9 in) crocodyloid egg was recovered with the skeletal fossils, and is of reasonable size to have come from an individual with a length of 63.5 centimeters, suggesting that some of the individuals were sexually mature. The maxillae had overhanging lips along their outer margins, and the tooth row was set away from the margin. One maxilla has an oval puncture mark, 5 millimeters by 6.5 millimeters (0.2 by 0.26 in), probably made by a larger predator. The snout was short and flat.

The lifecycle of A. galli is direct in a single host, involving two principal populations, namely the sexually mature parasite in the gastrointestinal tract and the infective stage (L2). The eggs are oval in shape and have thick, albuminous shells that are highly resistant to desiccation and persist for a long time in the environment. Larvae do not hatch, but moult inside the eggs until they reach the L2 stage. This can take about two weeks, but the period depends on other factors such as the weather condition.

Adults are not sexually mature when they emerge and need a week or more, depending on conditions, before they can breed. In L.sponsa in Japan the length of the summer maturation period is correlated with temperature and lasts on average 20 days in the north where it is cooler up to 120 days in the hotter south. This stops egg laying early in summer, which could lead to egg not entering diapause and hatching in autumn. This would disrupt the normal cycle as larva hatched in autumn would not survive the winter.

Naïve D. melanogaster will also attempt to court females that are not yet sexually mature, and other males. D. melanogaster males show little to no preference for D. melanogaster females over females of other species or even other male flies. However, after D. simulans or other flies incapable of copulation have rejected the males’ advances, D. melanogaster males are much less likely to spend time courting nonspecifically in the future. This apparent learned behavior modification seems to be evolutionarily significant, as it allows the males to avoid investing energy into futile sexual encounters.

Eastern box turtles require high humidity, warm temperatures with vertical and horizontal thermal gradients, suitable substrate for burrowing, and full spectrum ultraviolet lighting that mimics sunlight. A basking area at one end of the enclosure is important to offer the turtle the ability to warm itself and is critical to sexually mature males and females for development of sperm and egg follicles respectively. Therefore, a large, easily accessible water dish for bathing and drinking is important to their health. Water should be fresh and clean and available at all times.

Turritopsis nutricula in any point of the medusa stage has the ability to transform back into its polyp stage. T. nutricula is the first known metazoan that has been observed to sexually mature and return to its juvenile colonial stage. This regression from medusa to polyp has only been observed with the presence of differentiated cells from the outer umbrella and part of the animals digestion system. The ability of transdifferentiation, a non-stem cell which can morph into a different type of cell, in these cells is pivotal for this species' changing life cycle.

Shortnose spurdog carry their eggs in utero and typically carry their eggs for 2 years. Reproduction is perhaps the answer to why females are so much larger than males since larger female sharks are more likely to have a larger litter size. This is because larger females produce larger embryos that therefore have a higher survival rate. The average litter size is only 2-4 and only 50% of sexually mature females reach recruitment, meaning have offspring that will settle and grow into maturity and become part of the population.

Because they lack this key defence, only an estimated 0.5% of cane toads reach adulthood. As with rates of growth, the point at which the toads become sexually mature varies across different regions. In New Guinea, sexual maturity is reached by female toads with a snout–vent length between , while toads in Panama achieve maturity when they are between in length. In tropical regions, such as their native habitats, breeding occurs throughout the year, but in subtropical areas, breeding occurs only during warmer periods that coincide with the onset of the wet season.

Therefore, the lifecycle is indirect because the parasite has to infect other species to reach its final host and become sexually mature and reproduce. Intermediate hosts and definitive hosts provide the parasite transport to other hosts and a place to develop, whereas paratenic hosts only provide transport to other hosts. The cycle begins when the wading bird excretes feces in or nearby a water body. In the feces, the eggs are shed, and once they reach the water, an oligochaete, or aquatic worm, feeds on the eggs and becomes the first intermediate host.

They are diurnal, and are particularly active in the early morning and in the later afternoon or early evening. Chlorocebus monkeys live in multiple male/multiple female groups, which can be as large as 76 individuals. The group hierarchy plays an important role: dominant males and females are given priority in the search for food, and are groomed by subordinate members of the group. They exhibit female philopatry, a social system whereby the females remain in the same home range where they were born, and males leave once sexually mature.

This study recorded longevity, growth rate and age at maturity in the evolution of horse based on the evidence provided from the Asiatic wild ass bone specimens. As this species is morphologically and ecologically similar to the extinct stenoid horses, it provided an understanding towards their evolution . In mammals, the hard bone tissue is heavily influenced by external environmental conditions and resource availability which was proved by the different growth rates between wild and captive ass’. Results also showed that the species became sexually mature a year before their final growth arrest.

Members of this class are commonly found in relatively cold waters, close to the shoreline. Sexually mature stauromedusae free-spawn eggs or sperm, which fertilize in the sea and form a creeping, unciliated planula larva. The larvae crawl across the sea floor and find a suitable place, attaching themselves typically to rock or algae, where they eventually develop into a new, attached stauromedusa. Unlike most scyphozoan jellyfish that practice strobilation, or the process of dividing themselves into body segments, which become new individuals, nearly all stauromedusae develop directly into the adult form.

Facultative hematophages, meanwhile, acquire at least some portion of their nutrition from non-blood sources in at least one of the sexually mature forms. Examples of this include many mosquito species, such as Aedes aegypti, whose both males and females feed on pollen and fruit juice for survival, but the females require a blood meal to produce its eggs. Fly species such as Leptoconops torrens can also be facultative hematophages. In anautogenous species, the female can survive without blood, but must consume blood in order to produce eggs (obligatory hematophages are by definition also anautogenous).

There are three breeding colonies on the island where females and their pups congregate for a portion of the year. Since there are markedly more females in a colony, and males are bigger than females, it is assumed to be polygamous, and males and females can mate multiple times. It is possible that males fight over females, and larger claws in males may be used in defending territories and harems. However, sexually mature males are unlikely to maintain harems until they reach full size at about 38.5 months.

It becomes flight-ready after five or six months when it reaches an estimated forearm length of and weight of , respectively 86.3% and 41.2% of their adult dimensions. Males begin to mature at 15 months of age and are sexually mature by 27 months; females reach physical maturity at 24 months, and sexual maturity by 28 months. This is one of the oldest ages of maturation of any known bat. For example, the grey- headed flying fox reaches sexual maturity at 16 and 11 months for males and females respectively.

The sexually mature American shad enter coastal rivers in spring or early summer, usually when the river water has warmed to . Cooler water appears to interrupt the spawn. Consequently, the shad run correspondingly later in the year passing from south to north along the coast, commencing in Georgia in January; in March in the waters tributary to Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds; in April in the Potomac; and in May and June in northern streams generally from Delaware to Canada. In large rivers, such as the Connecticut, American shad run far upstream.

Blepharisma japonicum produces sexual pheromones that promote conjugation. There are two mating types (I and II), each type excreting a specific pheromone (termed gamone 1 and gamone 2, respectively). When sexually mature mating-type I cells are moderately starved, they autonomously produce and secrete gamone I. Gamone 1 specifically acts on mating-type II cells, transforming them so that they can unite with type I cells, and inducing them to secrete gamone 2. Gamone 2 then transforms type I cells so that they can unite with type II cells.

The low temperature at that altitude threatened the younger members of the group and as Titus lingered there Kuryama made a bid for dominance. He successfully displaced Titus and then led the majority of the troop, including most of the sexually mature females and their offspring, away from the mountain. Titus did not resist but was not willing to give up his dominant position and so the troop was split. Some of the older females, including the dominant female Tuck, and their infants remained with Titus, as did a young silverback named Tuyizere.

Female blackfin icefish are total spawners with determinate fecundity, and typically spawn every year. However, because reproduction requires large amounts of energy and icefish are limited due metabolically to lack of haemoglobin, sexually mature females may skip a season of spawning if food has been scarce or of poor quality. The incubation period can take 2 to 6 months to complete, depending on the latitude (more southerly regions have longer incubation periods). The larvae remain pelagic for 5 to 7 years until maturity, growing relatively quickly at about 6 to 10 cm each year.

Females may deposit from 20,000 to 40,000 eggs, according to age and size, averaging about 30,000. In sexually mature herring, the genital organs grow before spawning, reaching about one- fifth of its total weight. The eggs sink to the bottom, where they stick in layers or clumps to gravel, seaweed, or stones, by means of their mucous coating, or to any other objects on which they chance to settle. If the egg layers are too thick they suffer from oxygen depletion and often die, entangled in a maze of mucus.

Jannus is the son of Mistress Lillia, the ruler of Newstock, a village near the river in Bremner. The competing villages are protected by the Valde, strange female warriors who serve ten years in the villages. The few that reach the end of their service are allowed to get married with one of the rare male Valde. The Valde are tall, beautiful, filled with quick animal instincts, sexually mature at nine and dead of old age around thirty, are also gifted with empathy; the power to feel one's emotions.

Both parents feed the chicks and fledged young. This species becomes sexually mature after one year, and has a life expectancy of less than two years. Although their ranges overlap substantially, hybridisation between goldcrests and firecrests seems to be prevented by differences in courtship rituals and different facial patterns. Even in aviary studies in which a female goldcrest was given an artificial eyestripe to facilitate mating with a male firecrest, the chicks were never raised by the mixed pair, and appeared to be poorly adapted compared to the parent species.

It lives in ponds, lakes, canals, marshes, forests, pasture, or agricultural land, sometimes in acid pools on upland moorland or coastal areas. It spends the breeding season in water, laying 100 to 300 eggs which hatch into larvae in about two to three weeks, and then metamorphose after a further six to 9 weeks. In colder areas, the larvae often overwinter in the water and then metamorphose the next year. They become sexually mature in the second year, but neoteny is also known to occur in this species.

Basking and conduction from the substrate are primary means of increasing body temperature and cooling is achieved by evaporative cooling and conduction of heat to a cooler medium. Diurnal and nocturnal activity are often related to seasonal changes in temperature; most western toads are diurnal during the spring and fall but are nocturnal during the warmer summer months. In central Oregon, the minimum breeding age for male western toads is three years, and probably four or five years for females. California toads are reported as sexually mature at 2 years of age.

They are weaned at 20 to 25 days and the females become sexually mature by six weeks with the males reaching maturity by eight weeks. There may be up to four litters per year and as the youngsters start to breed, numbers quickly build up over the summer months. The bank vole lives for up to two years in the wild. In captivity this can increase to over 42 months, with the older voles tending to spend most time resting, less physically agile, though still capable of having a spin on the wheel.

Noisy scrubbirds are sexually mature at approximately 5 years of age for males and the first breeding season for females. Unlike many other birds they lay one egg at a time and have a clutch size of only 2 eggs. The nest is a circular shape structure typically build in low lying shrubbery, rushes or sedges and is made from common sticks, leaves and decaying plant matter. Males play no part in the nest, but it is believed they may defend the territory the female has laid her eggs in.

Ammocoetes of ABL feed on algae and detritus for 3–7 years before they metamorphose into sexually mature adult fish. Metamorphosis takes place in the late summer and early fall, with adults ready to spawn at the end of winter when spring temperatures are appropriate for egg development (~15 °C). The male(s), aided by a female(s), construct small nests by picking up pebbles with its mouth and moving them to form the rims of a shallow depression. Oftentimes adults work in groups, and build the nests communally.

Adults can be encountered from mid June through late August in the immediate vicinity of quiet rivers or close to stagnant and shallow waters, lying on a well sunny ground. Sexually mature males defend a 'territory' on the waterfront by making short inspection flights, in order to chase away other males. These skimmers commonly mate at rest, usually on the ground. Female lays the eggs on the surface of shallow water, touching it only with her abdomen while flying, sometimes accompanied by the male, that keeps other males at a distance.

Two male blue wildebeest fighting for dominance A female and her calf Male blue wildebeest become sexually mature at about 2 years of age, while females can conceive at 16 months if adequately nourished. Nevertheless, most females do not start to breed until a year later. The mating season, which lasts for about 3 weeks, coincides with the end of the rainy season. This means that the animals are in good condition, having been feeding on highly nutritious new grass growth, and the conception rate is often as high as 95%.

Also, while in many organisms sexual maturity is strongly linked to age, many other factors are involved, and it is possible for some to display most or all of the characteristics of the adult form without being sexually mature. Conversely it is also possible for the "immature" form of an organism to reproduce. This is called progenesis, in which sexual development occurs faster than other physiological development (in contrast, the term neoteny refers to when non-sexual development is slowed – but the result is the same, the retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood).

When sexually mature mating-type I cells are moderately starved, they autonomously produce and secrete gamone I. Gamone 1 specifically acts on mating-type II cells, transforming them so that they can unite with type I cells, and inducing them to secrete gamone 2. Gamone 2 then transforms type I cells so that they can unite with type II cells. Cells that can unite may then undergo conjugation. Conjugation of opposite mating types promotes outcrossing and the masking of deleterious recessive mutations in the diploid phase of the sexual cycle.

Females become sexually mature in their second year, but males do not start breeding until they are older. Larger populations of kob tend to have a lek mating system, the females living in loose groups and only visiting the traditional breeding grounds in order to mate. For this purpose, males hold small territories of up to in diameter, the smallest territories being in the centre of crowded leks. Calving takes place at the end of the rainy season; a single calf is born in November or December, after a gestation period of about nine months.

Coimbra Filho's titi is currently considered endangered on the IUCN Redlist due to a variety of threats, both natural and anthropogenic, including habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, limited reproductive options, and increased predation. The primary biological threat to Coimbra Filho's titi comes from its mating behavior. While juvenile members of the species remain in their natal groups, upon sexual maturity they leave and set off upon their own. Coupled with the habitat fragmentation faced by the species, this behavior limits the number of sexually mature individuals in each fragment of the population, limiting reproductive options.

The giant oceanic manta ray sometimes visits a cleaning station on a coral reef, where it adopts a near-stationary position for several minutes while cleaner fish consume bits of loose skin and external parasites. Such visits occur most frequently at high tide. It does not rest on the seabed as do many flat fish, as it needs to swim continuously to channel water over its gills for respiration. Males become sexually mature when their disc width is about , while females need to be about wide to breed.

Tamarins typically live in extended family groups of 4 to 15 individuals. Although groups of tamarins may have more than one female per group, only one typically breeds (with the exception of Goeldi's marmoset). Dominant female callitrichids suppress the reproductive activity of their daughters and other subordinate females within their family group. Because daughters of dominant females and other females born and remaining in a group tend not to ovulate, when a female becomes sexually mature, there are two options: either find another group or stay in the natal group.

Rutting peaked between the 20th and 30 March, with calves being born in November. Males became sexually mature at 4–8 months old and females could first conceive at 16–17 months. The mean generation length was 4.2 years, with males having an average 7-8 year, and females an 11-12 year, lifespan, with annual mortality of 30-40%. The main limiting factor in the population was the availability of winter forage; as well as starvation, a significant cause of mortality was falls from cliffs while trying to access ungrazed areas.

Jaguarundis have been observed mating all year round, with peaks at different times of the year across the range; for instance, in Mexico breeding peaks in January and March. Estrus lasts three to five days, marked by the female regularly rolling onto her back and spraying urine. Sexually mature males will pursue the female, not reacting to any aggressive behavior from her side. As in many other felids, the male bites the fur on the female's neck on mounting; the female lets out a loud scream on penetration.

Galaxias fasciatus by Joseph Drayton Banded kokopu are diadromous, spending the first 3–4 months of live at sea, before migrating back to freshwater as whitebait (40-45mm long). Banded kokopu become sexually mature at two or three years old. They spawn in adult habitats during flood events in autumn and early winter, laying the 2 mm diameter eggs amongst flooded vegetation and leaf litter on the edge of the stream. As the flood recedes the eggs are left to develop out of the water; the high humidity provided by the vegetation keeps them moist.

Oecophylla smaragdina queen A queen ant (formerly known as a gyne) is an adult, reproducing female ant in an ant colony; generally she will be the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants, such as the Cataglyphis, do not need to mate to produce offspring, reproducing through asexual parthenogenesis or cloning, and all of those offspring will be female. Others, like those in the genus Crematogaster, mate in a nuptial flight. Queen offspring ant develop from larvae specially fed in order to become sexually mature among most species.

Females in some of these species contain large, developed ovaries and free-living males have large testes, suggesting these sexually mature individuals may spawn during a temporary sexual attachment that does not involve fusion of tissue. Males in these species also have well-toothed jaws that are far more effective in hunting than those seen in symbiotic species. Sexual symbiosis may be an optional strategy in some species of anglerfishes. In the Oneirodidae, females carrying symbiotic males have been reported in Leptacanthichthys and Bertella—and others that were not still developed fully functional gonads.

When sexually mature, they have been known to prey on other jellyfish species at a rapid pace. If a T. dohrnii jellyfish is exposed to environmental stress, physical assault, or is sick or old, it can revert to the polyp stage, forming a new polyp colony. It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation, which alters the differentiated state of the cells and transforms them into new types of cells. Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although in practice individuals can still die.

Sexually mature Bothrops insularis mate during August and September, and have been known to mate both in the trees and on the ground. Like most vipers, B. insularis gives live birth to its young. The average size for a litter of golden lanceheads is 6.5 newborns. There are no published data regarding the size of the golden lancehead at birth, but they would probably be of a similar size to those of Bothrops jararaca, which have a snout to vent length (SVL) of 24.5 to 25.3 cm (about 9¾ in) and a weight of 9.38 to 10.61 grams (about ⅓ ounce).

Four apostlebirds (Struthidea cinerea) of a cooperative breeding group. Helpers at the nest is a term used in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology to describe a social structure in which juveniles and sexually mature adolescents of either one or both sexes remain in association with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods or litters, instead of dispersing and beginning to reproduce themselves. This phenomenon was first studied in birds where it occurs most frequently, but it is also known in animals from many different groups including mammals and insects. It is a simple form of co-operative breeding.

The female then gives birth to young that average in length. The litter size varies between females but can be between 10 and 65 young, with an average of 25, although some of the young may be stillborn or unfertilized eggs known as "slugs". The young are independent at birth and grow rapidly for the first few years, shedding regularly (once every one to two months). At 3–4 years, boa constrictors become sexually mature and reach the adult size of , although they continue to grow at a slow rate for the rest of their lives.

Once the calves are too big for the rough tidal waters they swim to the open sea to become "carpet whales" which measure from 5 meters length upwards, and might live for millennia. This sexually mature final stage no longer uses tools, no longer hunts but grazes, and might either lose recognizable intelligence or spend its time with philosophy. The outwardly humanoid sapients of Chujo, the Chupchups are mysterious as the story begins to unfold. Before their planet's climate changed to its present harsh conditions thousands of years ago they had reached a stage resembling the Hellenistic civilization on Earth.

The broodstock for the farms is usually selected from existing farm stock or sometimes sourced from wild populations. Eggs and milt are stripped manually from sexually mature salmon and incubated under conditions replicating the streams and rivers where the salmon would spawn naturally (around ). After hatching, the baby salmon are typically grown to smolt stage (around six- months of age) before they are transferred to the sea cages or ponds. Most sea cage farming occurs in the Marlborough Sounds, Stewart Island, and Akaroa Harbour, while freshwater operations in Canterbury, Otago, and Tasman use ponds, raceways, and hydrocanals for growout operations.

Both males and females reach sexual maturity between the ages of 1.5 and 3 years, although breeding is not necessarily successful during the first year of maturity. Males exhibit testicular enlargement as they mature, which gradually increases over the months leading to their breeding window. After successfully breeding with a female, the male's testicles gradually reduce to normal. When females become sexually mature and enter estrus during the breeding season, their vaginas begin to open slightly, starting with a small pink dot and line, which is easily visible because the skin around the vulva is black.

Modern animals with mating signals as prominent as the horns and frills of ceratopsians tend to form these kinds of large, intricate associations. Sampson found in previous work that the centrosaurine ceratopsids did not achieve fully developed mating signals until nearly fully grown. He finds commonality between the slow growth of mating signals in centrosaurines and the extended adolescence of animals whose social structures are ranked hierarchies founded on age-related differences. In these sorts of groups young males are typically sexually mature for several years before actually beginning to breed, when their mating signals are most fully developed.

Ernst Bornemann was the only child of the Jewish couple Curt and Hertha (née Blochert) Bornemann. Born and raised in Berlin, he says he was "sexually mature at fourteen, politically mature at fifteen, and intellectually mature between fourteen and sixteen". As a pupil he made the acquaintance of German Marxist poet Bertolt Brecht and also worked at the counselling centre for workers established by Austrian-Jewish psychologist Wilhelm Reich's Socialist Association for Sexual Counselling and Research, an organisation Reich had moved from Vienna to Berlin in 1930. Another important influence in Bornemann's early life was music, especially from overseas.

Arenga pinnata illustration by Francisco Manuel Blanco from Flora de Filipinas (1880-1883) Kaong sugar palms (Arenga pinnata) are solitary monoecious palm trees usually found in riverbanks and ravines throughout Southeast Asia. They are used widely in maritime Southeast Asia for various products. In the Philippines, they are most commonly harvested for their fibers, leaves, fruits and their sap, which is used in the production of tubâ (palm toddy) in addition to vinegar. The palms become sexually mature and start producing large fruit and flower clusters at ten to twelve years, but sometimes they can flower as early as five to six years.

Their overall activity when it comes to mating or laying eggs is completely correlated to the air temperature and not the precipitation. Male desert box turtles are normally sexually mature by the time they are 8–9 years of age, but in captivity have been known to breed as young at the age 2. Females normally require 10–11 years to reach sexual maturity and their breeding season lasts between March and May, and nesting sites will be chosen from May to July. Males will be sexually active from the time they emerge from hibernation until September or October.

Spider mites on a lemon plant Hot, dry conditions are often associated with population build-up of spider mites. Under optimal conditions (approximately 27 °C), the two-spotted spider mite can hatch in as little as 3 days, and become sexually mature in as little as 5 days. One female can lay up to 20 eggs per day and can live for 2 to 4 weeks, laying hundreds of eggs. This accelerated reproductive rate allows spider mite populations to adapt quickly to resist pesticides, so chemical control methods can become somewhat ineffectual when the same pesticide is used over a prolonged period.

The little flying squid's biology is little known. All speciemsn caight to date have been caught at depths of between 78m and 357m where the water temperature at depths of 50m was greater than 23 °C and that at the surface could reach 29 °C in the summer. A single trawl has caught up to 54 individuals which suggests that this species forms schools. Any females caught which are larger than 60 mm mantle length have all been sexually mature, with eggs present in their oviducts and all males with mantle lengths greater than 50mm bore mature spermatophores.

Models of bird-song motor learning can be useful in developing models for how humans learn speech. In some species such as zebra finches, learning of song is limited to the first year; they are termed "age-limited" or "close-ended" learners. Other species such as the canaries can develop new songs even as sexually mature adults; these are termed "open-ended" learners. Researchers have hypothesized that learned songs allow the development of more complex songs through cultural interaction, thus allowing intraspecies dialects that help birds to identify kin and to adapt their songs to different acoustic environments.

In a population off Namibia the sex showed a clear predominance of females over males, which has also been observed in the congeneric European flying squid (Todarodes sagittatus). This may be due to differing habitat preferences of males and females and that the only meet to spawn. The smallest mature male has a mantle length of 240mm and the smallest mature female measured 250mm. Studies of certain anatomical features suggest that females become sexually mature at mantle lengths of between 300mm to 350 mm The sub-adult and adult squid are most abundant during the Southern spring, from October to December.

Although firm details concerning pygmy sperm whale reproduction are limited, they are believed to mate from April to September in the Southern Hemisphere and March to August in the Northern Hemisphere. These whales become sexually mature at age 4-5, and like virtually all mammals, are iteroparous (reproducing many times during their lives). Once a female whale is impregnated, the average gestation period lasts 9–11 months, and unusually for cetaceans, the female gives birth to a single calf head-first. Newborn calves are about in length, weighing 50 kg, and are weaned around one year of age.

The sailfin grouper occurs along rock walls, over rocky reef drop-offs, underwater lava ridges and around other vertical rock formations as adults, the juveniles have been recorded from shallow sandy lagoons, sea grass beds, mangrove lagoons, shallow lava reefs and even inland lava ponds. The adults are piscivorous and the main prey of the larger adults is the pacific creolefish (Paranthias colonus). The females become sexually mature at 4 years of age and with a total length of around . The transition to males takes place around 12 year of age and when the total length is .

These singular outside wolves, often referred to as lone wolves, are vulnerable to food scarcity and territorial attacks, and generally make up less than 15% of a wolf population. Lone wolves usually result from sexually mature offspring leaving their parental pack, though may also occur if harassed subordinates chose to disperse. In times of prey scarcity, low ranking wolves may choose to go off on their own if the pack cannot supply sufficient food. These lone wolves may then attempt to join into an existing wolf pack or, more commonly, find a mate and begin a new pack family as the alphas.

The species exhibits a single breeding season; mating occurs between June and October, with some local variation taking place between different populations across its range. Historical observation, mark-and- recapture studies, and preliminary investigations of population genetics indicate the possibility of both resident and transient members of populations, and suggest a polygynous mating system. Females are thought likely to become sexually mature in their second year, with breeding confirmed still to take place in animals over nine years old. Outside the mating season, the platypus lives in a simple ground burrow, the entrance of which is about above the water level.

On penetration, the head of the cercaria transforms into an endoparasitic larva, the schistosomule. Each schistosomule spends a few days in the skin and then enters the circulation starting at the dermal lymphatics and venules. Here, they feed on blood, regurgitating the haem as hemozoin. The schistosomule migrates to the lungs (5–7 days post-penetration) and then moves via circulation through the left side of the heart to the hepatoportal circulation (>15 days) where, if it meets a partner of the opposite sex, it develops into a sexually mature adult and the pair migrate to the mesenteric veins.

Females become sexually mature within their first year, with a study in Czechoslovakia showing that about 15% of females give birth at one year of age. Animals have been seen to chase each other as a preliminary to mating, which is done with the male hanging himself behind and over the female. Nurseries are often shared with other species, such as the greater mouse-eared bat, but there is no direct mixing with other species. The move to nurseries occurs from April onwards, with between 10 and 100 females present and between 2 and 20 males.

The spermatophore actually blocks the spermathecal duct so that another spermatophore cannot physiologically be planted. Additionally, after mating is completed, the genitalia of the pair hook firmly together for 40 to 90 minutes due to the clasping reflex, which prevents other males from mating with the female before she reaches the defensive state. Other than the loss of sexual receptivity after a copulation, refusal to mate occurs during the juvenile stage, when the insect is not yet fully sexually mature. Female grasshoppers who have not yet copulated with a male and are in the defensive state are exhibiting “primary defense”.

Half to three-quarters of the hatched young successfully fledge under most circumstances. They will become sexually mature in their first spring and often attempt to breed right away. On average, great grey shrikes get a chance at four breeding attempts during their life, with most birds in the wild getting eaten by a bird of prey or carnivorous mammal or dying of other causes before the end of their fifth winter. Raptorial birds are the main threat to shrikes after fledging, with regular predators including species as small as little owls (which are close to the same size as the shrike).

Evolutionary neoteny can arise in a species when those conditions occur, and a species becomes sexually mature ahead of its "normal development". Another explanation for the neoteny in domesticated animals can be the selection for certain behavioral characteristics. Behavior is linked to genetics which therefore means that when a behavioral trait is selected for, a physical trait may also be selected for due to mechanisms like linkage disequilibrium. Often, juvenile behaviors are selected for in order to more easily domesticate a species; aggressiveness in certain species comes with adulthood when there is a need to compete for resources.

Anatomy of the flower. A diagram illustrating flower development in Arabidopsis. Flower development is the process by which angiosperms produce a pattern of gene expression in meristems that leads to the appearance of an organ oriented towards sexual reproduction, the flower. There are three physiological developments that must occur in order for this to take place: firstly, the plant must pass from sexual immaturity into a sexually mature state (i.e. a transition towards flowering); secondly, the transformation of the apical meristem’s function from a vegetative meristem into a floral meristem or inflorescence; and finally the growth of the flower’s individual organs.

Scent rubbing in cats is performed by adult animals more often than juveniles, indicating that the behaviour is used as a means of marking territory or of expressing their status. Adult marmots display a form of scent rubbing called cheek rubbing more than young members of the species. Mature pumas spent a significantly longer time body rubbing than immature pumas, which is related to communication behaviours developing with age, mature females did not visit their community scrapes as often. Only sexually mature woolly monkeys exhibit chest rubbing, which suggests that this scent rubbing behaviour reproductive function.

Crimes of the Future details the wanderings of Adrian Tripod (Ronald Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women. Tripod joins a succession of organisations, including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and meets various individuals and groups of men who are trying to adjust themselves to a defeminized world. One man parodies childbirth by continually growing new organs which are removed from his body.

New York: Oxford UP. Pierre Trudeau (age at least 28),Memoirs, by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Toronto 1993, McClelland & Stewart publishers. Mark Twain (age 34), and Johann von Goethe (age 39) are all "late bloomers" in this last sense. In most public educational systems, children and adolescents of the same age are put in the same classes. Because of the wide variance in the onset of adolescence, this means that one class may include individuals who have not yet started puberty, others who are sexually mature but not fully grown and yet others who are effectively adult.

This species is a miniature species, with its maximum observed length being less than 16 millimetres (.63 in) SL. With females reaching sexual maturity between 11-16 mm (.43-.63 in), they are the smallest sexually mature aspredinids known. This hoplomyzontine aspredinid is distinguished by the lack of eyes, extremely reduced and toothless premaxillae, the lateral line ossicles hypertophied to form an armor of overlapping crescentic plates with dorsal and ventral limbs tilted anteriorly, the absence of longitudinal rows of large unculiferous tubercles along the lateral line and posterior portion of the body, and banding pigmentation pattern typical of other hoplomyzontines reduced.

Females start to form separate maternity colonies as gestation advances, and they may join other Pteropus species at their roosts, the births occur in April to May after the dispersal of the larger camp. When the camp regroups later in the year the juveniles gather at their own roosts, joining the breeding camp at the next season when they have become sexually mature. The habitat of roost sites is often composed of wet understorey which provides a temperate microclimate. The 'little reds' will seek to roost closely with others, their combined weight may break branches as they join the camp at a tree.

Candida albicans This is the list of healthy vaginal microbiota (VMB), which is defined as the group of species and genera that generally are found to have lack of symptoms, absence of various infections, and result in good pregnancy outcomes. VMB is dominated mainly by Lactobacillus species. This is the list of organisms that are found in the lower reproductive tract of sexually mature women who are not immunocompromised. A partial description of pathogens that can be found in the lower and upper reproductive tract of women can be found in the article sexually transmitted disease.

Studies indicate that girls who become sexually mature at earlier ages are also more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors such as smoking, alcohol or drug use, and engage in unprotected sex. The current literature is inadequate to provide the information we need to assess the extent to which environmental chemicals contribute to precocious puberty. Gaps in our knowledge are the result of limitations in the designs of studies, small sample sizes, challenges to conducting exposure assessment and the few number of chemicals studied. Unfortunately exposure is inferred and not actually measured in available studies.

A love dart (also known as a gypsobelum) is a sharp, calcareous or chitinous dart which some hermaphroditic land snails and slugs create. Love darts are both formed and stored internally in a dart sac. These darts are made in sexually mature animals only, and are used as part of the sequence of events during courtship, before actual mating takes place. Darts are quite large compared to the size of the animal: in the case of the semi-slug genus Parmarion, the length of a dart can be up to one fifth that of the semi-slug's foot.

The purpose of this happening is for acoustic signaling, meaning that it occurs when the seal feels threatened and attempts to ward off hostile species when competing for resources such as food and shelter. It also serves to communicate their health and superior status to both other males and females they are attempting to attract. In sexually mature males, a pinkish balloon-like nasal membrane comes out of the left nostril to further aid it in attracting a mate. This membrane, when shaken, is able to produce various sounds and calls depending on whether the seal is underwater or on land.

Growth is highly variable in eastern freshwater cod, but overall is slower than in Murray cod. The oldest specimen yet aged was only 14 years old, but this likely reflects limited sampling and many decades of overfishing and poaching that have led to the loss of most large individuals. There is little doubt the species has the potential to reach or exceed the maximum age recorded in Murray cod (48 years). Eastern freshwater cod are sexually mature at 4 to 5 years old, and at sizes as small as 700 g, the latter being markedly smaller than in Murray cod.

Two litters per season are typical, though three are possible. The female strengthens the nest when the young are nursing, and is more active to support her increased nutritional needs. The young, which were born hairless and blind and weighing less than a gram, may become sexually mature in as soon as 2–3 months; those born in the spring mature more quickly than those born late in the season, and may themselves reproduce in the same year they were born. The juvenile pelage is pale and quite similar to the adults' summer fur, and is molted when the young reaches adult size.

It can tolerate a wide range of salinities, occurring in brackish waters on the Sea of Marmara. Mature males and females are recorded all year in the Mediterranean Sea and this suggests that in this sea spawning is continuous with a resultant continuous recruitment of adult cuttlefish, with distinct peaks in some areas. The smallest sexually mature males recorded have been 20mm in mantle length and mature females at 30mm, off West Africa maturity is reached at around 1 year of age. In the Aegean Sea however the minimum mantle length for mature males and females was 41mm and 42mm respectively.

One theory suggests the males attach to females regardless of their own reproductive development if the female is not sexually mature, but when both male and female are mature, they spawn then separate. One explanation for the evolution of sexual symbiosis is that the relatively low density of females in deep-sea environments leaves little opportunity for mate choice among anglerfish. Females remain large to accommodate fecundity, as is evidenced by their large ovaries and eggs. Males would be expected to shrink to reduce metabolic costs in resource-poor environments and would develop highly specialized female-finding abilities.

A nest of dried grasses is constructed in a concealed position, and a litter of three to nine young are born after a thirty one-day gestation period. The young grow rapidly, suckle for about twenty six days, and become sexually mature at forty days. When danger threatens, one of a family of young shrews will grab its mother's fur near the base of her tail with its jaws, and one by one, the others will hold on to each other's tails in sequence until the whole family is linked together. The mother then rapidly leads them to safety with the young trailing along behind.

A sexually mature female was captured in late 1995, but died after half a year in 1996 when the Shishou Tian-e-Zhou Baiji Semi-natural Reserve (石首半自然白鱀豚保护区), which had contained only finless porpoises since 1990, was flooded. The Amazon river dolphin has historically been kept in dolphinariums. Today, only three exist in captivity: one in Acuario de Valencia in Venezuela, one in Zoologico de Guistochoca in Peru, and one in Duisburg Zoo in Germany. Several hundred were captured between the 1950s and 1970s, and were distributed in dolphinariums throughout the US, Europe, and Japan.

Males entering their second or third year may develop spotty blue and white plumage during the breeding season. By their fourth year, males have assumed their nuptial plumage, where the scapulars, secondary wing coverts, and secondary flight feathers are white while the rest of their bodies are a vibrant cobalt blue. All sexually mature males moult twice a year, once before the breeding season in winter or spring, and again afterwards in autumn; rarely, a male may moult directly from nuptial to nuptial plumage. The breeding males' blue plumage, particularly the ear- coverts, is highly iridescent due to the flattened and twisted surface of the barbules.

In spiders the intromittent organs are the male pedipalps, even though these are not primarily sexual organs, but serve as indirect mating organs; in the male the pedipalps have hollow, clubbed tips, often of complex internal anatomy. The sexually mature male typically deposits his semen onto a specially woven silken mat, then sucks the emission into his pedipalps. In mating, he inserts the openings of the pedipalps in turn into the epigyne, the female external genital structure. In Solifugae sperm transfer is also indirect; the male deposits a spermatophore on the ground, picks it up in his chelicerae, then inserts it into the female's genital opening.

Courtship and Sexual Freedom in Eighteenth-Century America The growing popularity of the automobile, and corresponding changes in dating practices, caused premarital sex to become more prevalent. Alfred Kinsey found that American women who became sexually mature during the 1920s were much less likely to be virgins at marriage than those who became mature before World War I. A majority of women during the 1920s under the age of 30 were nonetheless virgins at marriage, however, and half of those who were not only had sex with their fiancés. A 1938 survey of American college students found that 52% of men and 24% of women had had sex.

Although the sex change can occur as early as 5 years old it is more typical for it to take place at 10 to 11 years old and at a total length between . In the Atlantic coastal waters between North Carolina and Florida there are annual migrations in late winter, these migrations involve sexually mature fishes moving to offshore spawning grounds where at depths of . The spawning season in this region runs from December through May, peaking in late March and early April. In the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the spawning season runs from late December through to April, here it peaks in February and April.

The birds are solitary, but can be observed in pairs or family units (parents and dependent young) during their breeding seasons. In Eastern New South Wales, nesting square-tailed kites were found to have home territories of 50 m2, with spaces of around 13 km between nesting pairs. Current population estimates from the IUCN Red List indicate a population of between 1000–10,000 individuals, of which 67% are thought to be sexually mature individuals. Many square-tailed kites migrate annually, but the timing and locations of these migrations are dependent on the home territory of each individual bird, with some birds not migrating at all.

Modern mayflies have eliminated all the instars between imago and nymph, except the single instar called subimago, which is still not (at least not in the males) fully sexually mature. The other flying insects with incomplete metamorphosis (Exopterygota) have gone a little further and completed the trend; here all the immature structures of the animal from the last nymphal stage are completed at once in a single final moult. The more advanced insects with larvae and complete metamorphosis (Endopterygota) have gone even further. An interesting theory is that the pupal stage is actually a strongly modified and extended stage of subimago, but so far it is nothing more than a theory.

This chronic predation by the colonies will evolutionarily favor insects and other prey that possess adaptions to counteract the ants, such as chemical weaponry for defense or those that sexually mature at a smaller size. Since the larger Eciton burchellii ants require more prey for energy than other smaller ant colonies, only high biomass patches of prey will provide them with enough food. If the prey density in an area is too small, the colony may be forced to abandon the area and move on. During their raids, Eciton burchellii have also been known to predate wasp nests of species such as Polistes erythrocephalus.

Axolotls retain gills and fins as adults; these are juvenile features in most amphibians. Paedomorphosis can be the result of neoteny, the retention of juvenile traits into the adult form as a result of retardation of somatic development, or of progenesis, the acceleration of developmental processes such that the juvenile form becomes a sexually mature adult. Neoteny retards the development of the organism into an adult, and has been described as "eternal childhood". In this form of heterochrony, the developmental stage of childhood is itself extended, and certain developmental processes that normally take place only during childhood (such as accelerated brain growth in humans), is also extended throughout this period.

Routledge, The similar specifiers attracted to men, attracted to women, attracted to both or attracted to neither were used in the DSM-IV.APA task force (1994) "...For sexually mature individuals, the following specifiers may be noted based on the individual's sexual orientation: Sexually Attracted to Males, Sexually Attracted to Females, Sexually Attracted to Both, and Sexually Attracted to Neither..." in DSM-IV: Sections 302.6 and 302.85 published by the American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved via Mental Health Matters on 2007-04-06. Many transsexual people choose the language of how they refer to their sexual orientation based on their gender identity, not their birth assigned sex.

Once settled the adults are largely sedentary although juveniles may move as much as . Before sexual maturity the fish migrate northwards and spawning has not been recorded south of Durban. This species is a relatively slow-growing, diandric protogynous hermaphrodite, this means that some males are change sex from functional females, but others develop into males from non-reproductive juveniles, and the sex ratio is not as female-biased as in protogynous hermaphrodites where all fish sexually mature as females before some change into males, known as monandric. The testicular structure of individual males which change sex from female is different from that of the males which developed from juveniles.

Unfertilized blue ram eggs Closeup of unfertilized blue ram eggs The territorial aggression shown between females of M. ramirezi An electric blue ram cichlid Once sexually mature, the fish form monogamous pairs prior to spawning, and the males do not tolerate other males. The species is known to lay its small 0.9 - 1.5 mm, adhesive eggs on flattened stonesColeman RM, Galvani AP (1998) Egg Size Determines Offspring Size in Neotropical Cichlid Fishes (Teleostei: Cichlidae) Copeia 1:209-213. or directly into small depressions dug in the gravel. Like many cichlids, M. ramirezi practices biparental brood care, with both the male and the female playing roles in egg- tending and territorial defense.

ABC model of flower development guided by three groups of homeotic genes. The ABC model of flower development is a scientific model of the process by which flowering plants produce a pattern of gene expression in meristems that leads to the appearance of an organ oriented towards sexual reproduction, a flower. There are three physiological developments that must occur in order for this to take place: firstly, the plant must pass from sexual immaturity into a sexually mature state (i.e. a transition towards flowering); secondly, the transformation of the apical meristem's function from a vegetative meristem into a floral meristem or inflorescence; and finally the growth of the flower's individual organs.

The study concluded that Tyrannosaurus had the relatively largest brain of all adult non-avian dinosaurs with the exception of certain small maniraptoriforms (Bambiraptor, Troodon and Ornithomimus). The study found that Tyrannosaurus's relative brain size was still within the range of modern reptiles, being at most 2 standard deviations above the mean of non-avian reptile EQs. The estimates for the ratio of cerebrum mass to brain mass would range from 47.5 to 49.53 percent. According to the study, this is more than the lowest estimates for extant birds (44.6 percent), but still close to the typical ratios of the smallest sexually mature alligators which range from 45.9–47.9 percent.

Like other Goodeidae, butterfly splitfins mate by internal fertilization and spawn fully developed young. The females become sexually mature at about six months of age and can give birth every six to 10 weeks according to the water temperature and the condition of the fish. Mating is preceded by a courtship, where the males present themselves to the females with their heads pointing downwards - up to 45° from horizontal - and shake the forward part of their bodies. In that respect, they resemble the jeweled splitfin (Xenotoca variata); they do not have a ritualized "courtship dance" as some other splitfins, but the male sometimes rotates to present either flank to the female.

The hermaphroditic duct, a highly glandular duct of comparatively even diameter, traverses the greater portion of the first coil of the body to enter the accessory glands. All of these structures are in a quiescent condition, and in size and configuration probably fall far short of their fully developed state in the sexually mature condition. The same is likewise true of the gonad. While the duct leading to it from the accessory glands is clearly apparent throughout the first part of its course, it gradually approaches the vanishing point, and cannot with certainty be traced to a gonad, which is accordingly drawn in its hypothetical position.

Not much is known about the breeding habits of jerboas due to their solitary and nocturnal nature. However, breeding is known to occur at least twice a year, between June to July and from October to December. Males attempt to attract females by performing a bizarre ritual display; standing on its hind legs in front of an approaching female, the male faces his potential mate and then begins to slap the female at regular intervals with his short front limbs. A successful mating usually produces a litter of four to five young that become independent at around eight to ten weeks, and sexually mature at eight to twelve months.

Mycteroperca acutirostris occur within reefs, the adults preferring areas with rocky substrates, while the juveniles live among soft corals, turtle grass beds, mangroves and in shallower waters. The juveniles have also neen found in intertidal rocky shores in tide pools in South Brazil Their reproductive behaviour is little known although it is suspected that they are no sexually mature until they reach a weight of 2 kg.. In Brazilian waters they spawn during the southern spring, from September to December. They neither guard their eggs or broadcast them in the open water or over the substrate. The schools of M. acutirostris are normally encountered capturing prey in mid water.

Ants go through four stages of development: egg, larva, pupa (sometimes cocoon, called metamorphosis depending on the species) and adult. The larvae have no legs but are capable of some minor movement, such as bending their head toward a food source when fed. During this stage, the level of care and nourishment the larvae receive will determine their eventual adult form. When resources are low, all larvae will develop into female worker ants; however, if the parent of a sexually reproducing colony has a plentiful supply of food, some of the larvae will receive better nourishment than others, and develop into winged, sexually mature female ants destined to leave the colony.

The juvenile turtles that escape these early threats will most likely continue to grow and develop into sexually reproducing adults. For females this takes around 20 months. Once sexually mature, the Asiatic soft-shell can produce up to four clutches of eggs a year, however this depends on how temperate the year had been (as the mating cycles of these turtles relies on the dry season since this is the only times the river banks are exposed enough for them to lay their eggs). Although it is understood that Asiatic soft-shell turtles can live very long lives, it is not yet understood exactly how long their life cycle lasts.

An alternative from these chemicals would be to use insecticides made of pyrethroid, neonicotinoid, carbamate, avermectin, or organophosphate since alfalfa plant bugs are not resistant to these chemicals. Insecticides can be an effective and efficient method of controlling pests, but they do cause a great deal of damage to our environment and we should refrain from using them if possible. Insect pheromones have successfully been implemented to reduce the amount of damage Adelphocoris lineolatus cause to numerous agricultural crops. Sexually mature A. lineolatus produce a mixture of two pheromones known as, (E)-2-hexenyl butyrate (E2HB) and (E)-4-oxo-2-hexenal (4-OHE).

The final moult of the nymph is not to the full adult form, but to a winged stage called a subimago that physically resembles the adult, but which is usually sexually immature and duller in colour. The subimago, or dun, often has partially cloudy wings fringed with minute hairs known as microtrichia; its eyes, legs and genitalia are not fully developed. Females of some mayflies (subfamily Palingeniinae) do not moult from a subimago state into an adult stage and are sexually mature while appearing like a subimago with microtrichia on the wing membrance. Oligoneuriine mayflies form another exception in retaining microtrichia on their wings but not on their bodies.

In some species, it may last for just a few minutes, while the mayflies in the family Palingeniidae have sexually mature subimagos and no true adult form at all. Mayflies (known locally as shadflies) swarm briefly in enormous numbers in Ontario. Often, all the mayflies in a population mature at once (a hatch), and for a day or two in the spring or autumn, mayflies are everywhere, dancing around each other in large groups, or resting on every available surface. In many species the emergence is synchronised with dawn or dusk, and light intensity seems to be an important cue for emergence, but other factors may also be involved.

There are two distinct forms of the Blakhash marinka, a riverine form, and a faster growing migratory lacustrine form, however, both forms spawn in fast flowing currents over gravel beds. The females are sexually mature at4-11 years of age, the males at 3–8 years old. They are a fecund species and may lay between 12,000 and 122,500 eggs, although normally32,000 to 67,000 are laid in a spawning, the amount being dependent on the demographic make up of the spawning stock. Each egg is 2.3 mm in diameter. At a water temperatures ranging from 15 °C to 16 °C, and under controlled conditions, the eggs take 5 days to hatch.

It is sexually mature at 18–24 cm length and spawns in natural and artificial environments in two seasons, September–October and March–April. It spawns naturally in clear water on a gravelly or fine pebbled bed at 10–30 cm depth. Water current of 2.8–4 m/s, pH 7.5, dissolved oxygen concentrations Of 10–15 mg/l and gravel size of 50–60 mm are the optimum conditions for spawning. In the almost similar appearance of schizothorancine fishes, S. plagiostomus can be separated by its short, deep cornified lower jaw, with a transverse or usually sometimes only slightly curved sharp cutting margin.

By contrast, sexually mature females possess a flat plastron and have a tail notable shorter and thinner than mature males. Mature males also have a dark iris and face; females typically have a yellow or orange iris and a similarly coloured face that is distinctly lighter than males. Juveniles appear female-like in this regard and at maturity males begin to develop darker features. Spotted turtles are aquatic omnivores that inhabit a variety of semi-aquatic or in other words, shallow, fresh-water areas such as flooded forests, marshes, wet meadows, bogs and woodland streams in southern Canada (Ontario) and the eastern US: the eastern Great Lakes and east of the Appalachian Mountains.

Reproduction occurs in midsummer, when the warmer water temperature and lunar cycle among other factors triggers sexually mature worms to transform into a non-feeding stage called the epitoke. With enlarged parapodia, they swim to the surface of the water where both sexes release gametes, and then die. The first stage in many forms of bloodworm is a zooplanktonic stage followed by the benthic instar where the familiar segmented red larvae develop protected by silk tubes made in the bottom silt. These larvae progress from tiny pale opaque worms to the larger red larvae of 3 to 10 centimeters in length or longer over a period of as short a period as 2–3 weeks in optimum conditions.

A juvenile white sturgeon White sturgeon are iteroparous breeders with blank into river systems in the late fall and winter, spawning occurring in the spring months. There is much uncertainty around reproduction timing of events in white sturgeon, with many papers reporting differing results dependent on the river system observed. Chapman, Van Enennaam and Doroshov witnessed sexually mature females FL in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system estimated around 9 years old by using the Von Bertalannfy growth function, while the youngest sexual mature was a male FL estimated to be six years old. However, other reports have sexual maturity for white sturgeon at 12 and 10 years old for females and males.

Female blue whales are larger than males. Hydrodynamic models suggest that a blue whale could not exceed 108 ft (33 m) due to metabolic and energy constraints. The average length of sexually mature female blue whales is 72.1 ft (22.1 m) for Eastern North Pacific blue whales, 79 ft (24.1 m) for central and western North Pacific blue whales, 92 ft (28.1 m) for North Atlantic blue whales, 83.4–86.3 ft (25.4–26.6 m) for Antarctic blue whales, 77.1 ft (23.5 m) for Chilean blue whales, and 69.9 ft (21.3 m) for pygmy blue whales. In the Northern Hemisphere, males weigh an average 100 tons (200,000 lb) and females 112 tons (224,000 lb).

Further discoveries were made in 2002 and 2006 and the species appears to have become established in Broward and Dade Counties. It has also been found on some boats moored off the coast of Florida and it is thought that the termite may have arrived in Florida via this means, with sexually mature adults reaching the mainland after nuptial flights. In the West Indies, it has become established in some natural woodland habitats, but in Florida, it seems to be restricted to manmade structures, trees growing close to them, and boats. In the mainland United States, this species is likely to remain restricted to southern Florida because it is a tropical species and can only flourish with sufficient warmth.

They are monandric protogynous hermaphrodites, in which the males only develop from mature females, the youngest males found have been 9 years of age and females mature at 2.2 years and at around in fork length. This species is comparatively fast growing and may attain a length of in less than four years and females may be sexually mature in less than three years. They form small spawning aggregations although large aggregations have been recorded from the northern Great Barrier Reef. It is likely that this species spawns in deeper waters on reef fronts compared to P. leopardus and this may be the reason for the lack of spawning observations for P. laevis.

After being ejected by the host, they pupate in soil (2 to 3 weeks) before emerging as a sexually-mature but non-feeding adult, which must quickly find a mate, since its life is short. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) described deer botfly larvae as follows: > However, without any exception, stags are found to have maggots living > inside the head, and the habitat of these creatures is in the hollow > underneath the root of the tongue and in the neighbourhood of the vertebra > to which the head is attached. These creatures are as large as the largest > grubs; they grow all together in a cluster, and they are usually about > twenty in number.

Juveniles schooling by day in shallow water in the Ligurian Sea, Italy In the Mediterranean, the European pilchard moves offshore in the autumn, preferring the deeper cooler waters and constant salinity out at sea to the variable temperatures and salinities of inshore waters. Spawning starts to take place in winter, and in early spring, juveniles, larvae and some adults move towards the coast, while other adults migrate inshore later in the year. Multiple batches of eggs are produced over a long breeding period, total fecundity being 50,000 to 60,000. Most juveniles become sexually mature at about a year old and a length of ; pilchards are fully grown at about when aged about eight years.

Acropoma japonicum is a marine species with a depth range of It inhabits sand and sandy mud bottoms. This is a predatory species in which the smaller individuals feed on copepods and caridean shrimp while the larger fish fed on those groups too but also preying on small fishes and krill. This species is unusual in having what appears to be a short life cycle for a predatory fish, the juvenile fish begin to settle at the end of the breeding season and are sexually mature by the start of the following breeding season. As the breeding season progresses the body condition of the males worsens and as a result they have a higher mortality than the females.

Jones and Bartlett Publishers: Canada. Bogin points out that Kollmann had intended the meaning to be "retaining youth", but had evidently confused the Greek teínein with the Latin tenere, which had the meaning he wanted, "to retain", so that the new word would mean "the retaining of youth (into adulthood)". In 1926 Louis Bolk described neoteny as the major process in humanization. In his 1977 book Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Stephen Jay Gould noted that Bolk's account constituted an attempted justification for "scientific" racism and sexism, but acknowledged that Bolk had been right in the core idea that humans differ from other primates in becoming sexually mature in an infantile stage of body development.

Southern black bream become sexually mature at different ages throughout their range, with Western and South Australian fish maturing by two to three years of age, while Victorian fish mature at five years. There is also a difference in maturation age between the sexes, as females generally mature one year later than males. The timing of spawning is also variable over the species range, with fish in Western Australia able to spawn from July to November, South Australian fish spawning between November and January and Victorian fish in October to November. Reproducing fish migrate into the upper reaches of rivers and streams, where they shed their eggs, with each fish producing up to three million per season.

Professional literature often uses terms such as attracted to men (androphilic), attracted to women (gynephilic), attracted to both (bisexual), or attracted to neither (asexual) to describe a person's sexual orientation without reference to their gender identity.APA task force (1994) "...For sexually mature individuals, the following specifiers may be noted based on the individual's sexual orientation: Sexually Attracted to Males, Sexually Attracted to Females, Sexually Attracted to Both, and Sexually Attracted to Neither..." in DSM-IV: Sections 302.6 and 302.85 published by the American Psychiatric Association. Retrieved via Mental Health Matters on 2007-04-06. Therapists are coming to understand the necessity of using terms with respect to their clients' gender identities and preferences.

It is among the earliest sexually explicit manga (eromanga) commercially published in the United States where it dates from 1994. Jason Thompson in Manga: The Complete Guide mentions it was "the first hit translated adult manga". The series is about two forest fairies, Pfil (pronounced as either p'fill, or "fill", like the male name Phil; she once corrected another fairy for calling her "piffle") and Pamila, who work as hunters and police protecting the forest, though not all of the series feature them as main characters. Pfil is more naïve and innocent, whereas Pamila is more sexually mature and open, although both frequently and easily engage in all sorts of sexual acts.

Females who have never produced a litter before tend to be more aggressive and will chase or instigate fights with males; females which have already produced young tend to greet the male with nasal to nasal or nasal to genital contact, with copulation following shortly afterwards. This approach is more successful than the aggressive manner of the non-parous female, with mating taking place within 11 to 20 days after hibernation. The relationship between a sexually mature male and female Olympic marmot is polygynous; males tend to breed with three or four females in each mating season. Approximately four weeks after mating, the female gives birth to her young in a grass-lined burrow underground.

Queen (marked) and workers of the Africanised honey bee, Apis mellifera scutellata The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female (gyne) that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature. There is normally only one adult, mated queen in a hive, in which case the bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her. The term "queen bee" can be more generally applied to any dominant reproductive female in a colony of a eusocial bee species other than honey bees.

Reproduction is closely linked to local rainfall pattern, and many brown bandicoots breed all year around, giving birth to up to four litters a year. Gestation lasts less than fifteen days, and perhaps as few as twelve, and typically results in the birth of two or three young, although litters of up to five have been reported; larger mothers tend to give birth to larger litters. The young weigh just at birth, remain in the pouch for about the first 53 days of life, and are fully weaned at around 60 days. Growth and maturation is relatively rapid among marsupials, with females becoming sexually mature at four to five months of age, and males at six or seven months.

Species of Aurelia can be found in the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and are common to the waters off California, northern China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Black Sea, Indonesia, the eastern coast of the United States as well as Europe. Aurelia undergoes alternation of generations, whereby the sexually- reproducing pelagic medusa stage is either male or female, and the benthic polyp stage reproduces asexually. Meanwhile, life cycle reversal, in which polyps are formed directly from juvenile and sexually mature medusae or their fragments, was also observed in Aurelia sp.1. The genus was first described in 1845 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in his book Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertebres (Natural History of Invertebrates).

A Western Australian field study found that most males took 6 to 8 weeks to travel around with occasional journeys of over , but that only around 11–13% successfully found a mate. They are attracted by pheromones, which are secreted by unmated sexually mature female redback spiders onto their webs and include a serine derivative (N-3-methylbutyryl-O-(S)-2-methylbutyryl-L-serine). This is thought to be the sole method by which males assess a female's reproductive status, and their courtship dismantles much of the pheremone-marked web. During mating, the male redback attempts to copulate by inserting one of its palps into the one of the female's two spermathecae (sperm storage organs), each of which has its own insemination orifice.

WSPA has stated that on average, the centre has only released 27 turtles per year since 2007. The Cayman Turtle Centre has confirmed that after Hurricane Michelle wiped out 75 per cent of its breeding population, the centre cut back the number of releases annually, but as stocks rebuild its recent releases have been increasing, with 75 turtles released in 2011 and 150 in 2012. The Cayman Islands Department of the Environment has released data showing that turtles released as hatchlings or yearlings from Cayman Turtle Centre decades ago, are becoming sexually mature and are returning as adults to nest on Grand Cayman's beaches. Between 1999 and 2003, the mean annual number of green sea turtle nests in Grand Cayman was 16.4.

On August 16 she participated in the concerts in Chile at the Teatro Caupolicán meeting for the first time to 13 local female performers that stand between Nicole, Denisse Malebrán, Javiera Parra, Francisca Valenzuela among others, being the youngest of the group which represented the younger generation as well as a touch pop. Besides music Nico joined the campaign to prevent teen pregnancy by saying "the decision has to be initiated sexually mature and after a deep personal process". She was nominated for the first time solo for Best New Artist Center in Los MTV 10 on October 15 was the awards ceremony in Bogota. On November 22, participates in the National Music Day along with other artists in the Parque O'Higgins.

Southern bluefin tuna spawn between September and April each year in the only known spawning grounds in the Indian Ocean, between the north-west Coast of Australia and Indonesia. The eggs are estimated to hatch within two to three days, and over the next two years attain sizes of approximately 15 kilograms; this size is the principal wild catch of the Australian SBT industry. It is believed that SBT become sexually mature between 9 and 12 years in the wild, which highlights the major negative impact of removing pre-spawning populations from the wild. Juvenile tuna are mainly caught on the continental shelf in the Great Australian Bight region from December to around April each year, and weigh on average .

After spawning the eggs hatch within 36 hours, There is then a pelagic larval phase which lasts for at least a month before the fish settleAfter spawning the eggs hatch Males are sexually mature at between 2 and 4 years old and half of them are mature when they have attained in length while females are mature at 2 to 5 years old and half of them are mature at . They maximum recorded life span is 34 years. This species is largely diurnal and they are typically associated with some sort of cover while shade appears to be important in allowing them to effectively observe prey and to catch it. Individuals are faithful tp their home ranges, which average around and may show curiosity towards new objects.

The flightless trait in insects has evolved many separate times; environments that may have contributed to the separate evolution of this trait are: high altitudes, isolation on islands, and insects that reside in colder climates. These environmental factors may be responsible for the flightless trait, because in these situations it would be disadvantageous to have a population that is more dispersed, so flightlessness would be favored due to the boundaries it poses to dispersal. Also, in cooler temperatures heat is lost more rapidly through wings, thus the circumstance favors flightlessness. Another couple of main points to note about insects are that the females in certain groups become sexually mature without metamorphosing into adulthood, and some insects which grow up in certain conditions do not ever develop wings.

The blueside darter spawns once a year when water temperatures reach 21° - 23 °C roughly during March through May throughout the range however in TN spawning starts between mid-February and mid-March with reproduction occurring April to early May Spawning occurs in deeper riffles than those used by Etheostoma stigmaeum. Female blueside darters show increased fecundity as they grow longer in length. At 1 year of age large females are sexually mature but there is limited data on male sexual maturity Darters have two spawning behaviors; they either bury the eggs in the substrate or attach the eggs to an object. Blueside darters bury their eggs in riffle habitats with fine or course gravel sand substrate in moderate current.

The three tercel (male) eagles make their case for the hand of a formel (female) eagle until the birds of the lower estates begin to protest and launch into a comic parliamentary debate, which Nature herself finally ends. None of the tercels wins the formel, for at her request Nature allows her to put off her decision for another year (indeed, female birds of prey often become sexually mature at one year of age, males only at two years). Nature, as the ruling figure, in allowing the formel the right to choose not to choose, is acknowledging the importance of free will, which is ultimately the foundation of a key theme in the poem, that of common profit. Nature allows the other birds, however, to pair off.

In the autumn of each year, hunts take the young hounds cub hunting, also called autumn hunting or cubbing. The purpose of this is to teach inexperienced hounds to hunt and kill and to cull weaker young foxes; which are full size by autumn,Raymond Carr, English Fox Hunting: A History (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976) although not yet sexually mature. Another goal of cub hunting is to teach the young foxhounds to restrict their hunting to foxes. The activity sometimes incorporates the practice of 'holding up', which consists of hunt supporters surrounding a covert, with riders and foot followers to drive back foxes attempting to escape, and then "drawing" the covert with the puppies and some more experienced hounds, allowing them to find and catch foxes within the surrounded wood.

The female Badumna longinqua spider can potentially spend the whole of her life in the one same web, whereas the sexually mature male is forced to leave his home when it becomes time to reproduce. The male begins his hunt for females in the warmer months of the year, from summer through to early autumn. Although the details of B. longinqua courtship have not yet been formally described, and biology of the spider is not well studied, it is acknowledged in most cases to be a solitary spider. The lifespan of Badumna longinqua is not officially documented, however its closest relative Badumna insignis lives for a maximum of around two years, and so it could be postulated that B. longinqua would live for approximately the same period of time.

O. antillarum is a fast-growing species and its maximum life span is 182 days. Growth rates, as measured on statolith increments which represent daily growth lines, slow markedly as the animal matures. The sex ratio is 1:1 and as the population matures it is believed that they undergo a spawning migration into areas associated with sea mounts. The earlier life stages are found in midwater in epipelagic to mesopelagic zones over slopes, tops and oceanic depths, then the sexually mature adults migrate waters associated with sea mounts and oceanic ridges to spawn on or near the bottom. The spermatophores are 9.0 mm in length and they are found in relatively low numbers compared to related species, with up to 100 but normally 50-60 present in the Needham's sac for each male.

Swordtails are some of the easiest fish for amateur aquarist to breed, if the conditions of the tank are appropriate and it contains both males and females reproduction will occur without intervention. Often all female groups which have come from a mixed gender tank will be pregnant on arrival, creating a breeding population when the fry sexually mature at around three months of age, later stages of pregnancy can be seen without much difficulty as a dark gravid spot will develop near the anal fin. Males can be distinguished from females by the presence of a Gonopodium, a modified anal fin used to impregnate the female during breeding. A ratio of one male to three or four females is recommended to ensure that individual females will not be overly harassed to breed.

The feeding patches for common squirrel monkeys are very small and dense, which makes it possible for an individual with the greatest capability of winning a fight, if one were to occur, to monopolize access to any patch. Within-group competition among common squirrel monkey groups is extremely high, and between-group competition is moderate to high. Coalition formation is not as stable as would be expected among the females of the group because considering their small and dense feeding patches, common squirrel monkey females with the greatest capability of winning a fight would benefit more if they were to form alliances to gain control of a patch and then not share the patch once in control of it. Once sexually mature, all males emigrate from their natal groups.

This can be seen in Cannabis sativa, a type of hemp, which have higher photosynthesis rates in males while growing but higher rates in females once the plants become sexually mature. p. 206 Every sexually reproducing extant species of vascular plant actually has an alternation of generations; the plants we see about us generally are diploid sporophytes, but their offspring really are not the seeds that people commonly recognise as the new generation. The seed actually is the offspring of the haploid generation of microgametophytes (pollen) and megagametophytes (the embryo sacs in the ovules). Each pollen grain accordingly may be seen as a male plant in its own right; it produces a sperm cell and is dramatically different from the female plant, the megagametophyte that produces the female gamete.

Although their reproduction is poorly studied, Australian salmon are all known to be "pelagic spawners"; that is, they spawn in open water during the austral spring, releasing a large number of tiny (1 mm in diameter), smooth spherical eggs made buoyant by lipid droplets. The eggs (and later the larvae), which possess an unsegmented yolk, become part of the zooplankton, drifting at the mercy of the currents until the larvae develop and settle. The young Australian salmon then spend the first two to five years in sheltered coastal bays, inlets, and estuaries until they become sexually mature and begin to move into more open waters. Relatively long-lived fishes, Australian salmon may attain an age of 26 yr in Arripis trutta and 7–9 yr in other species.

Most pregnancy in females occurs in the summer and the autumn, and pre-ovulatory periods in females occurred in the winter. in males calcifying claspers were observed during the summer, autumn, and winter. Going along with this pattern in males in females, there is an annual reproductive cycle with a mating season during the spring and a pregnancy and birth season during the summer and the autumn. There is a high energy requirement during the courtship and mating process, there may be bite marks observed in sexually mature female and male dorsal regions during the mating period (Rolim 2016). Life Span/Longevity As stated earlier, not much is known about their life cycle, but what is known is they have a very long surviving capacity and a low natural mortality rate (Marinsek 2017).

It breeds as single pairs or loose groups near marshes and other wetlands, with nesting activity starting about May. The clutch is usually 5–6 but sometimes up to 8 eggs, which are laid in a shallow nest made from plants, placed directly on the ground, often on a small knoll to keep it dry. The precocial young hatch after about 28 days and become sexually mature at 2–3 years of age. Around late August/early September, the birds leave for winter quarters, where they gather in small groups to moult their worn plumage. The swan goose was uplisted from Near Threatened to Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List in 1992 and further to Endangered in 2000, as its population is declining due to habitat loss and excessive hunting and (particularly on the Sanjiang Plain in China) egg collecting.

Black caimans are apex predators with a generalist diet, and can take virtually any terrestrial and riparian animal found throughout their range. Similar to other large crocodilians, black caimans have even been observed catching and eating smaller species, such as the spectacled caiman and sometimes cannibalizing smaller individuals of their own kind. Hatchlings mostly eat small fish, frogs, and invertebrates such as crustaceans and insects, but with time and size graduate to eating larger fish, including piranhas, catfish, and perch, which remain a significant food source for all black caimans. Dietary studies have focused on young caimans (due both to their often being more common than large adults and to their being easier to handle), the largest specimen examined for stomach contents in one study being only notably under sexually mature size, which is at a minimum in smaller females.

Adriatic sturgeons are slow-growing, long-lived fish, wild males are sexually mature at 7–11 years old (about 80 cm long), females at 12–14 years old (at least 1 m long) and ovulate every 2–4 years. During spring months mature fish migrate to the upper part of the rivers, then they lay eggs from April to June in deep and oxygenated waters, on gravelly substrates at a depth of 2–10 m, with a current velocity of 0.8 m/s at least. Water turbulence is very important for the reproductive success of sturgeons, since it avoids egg stress, aggregation of the eggs, anoxia, parasites, and predators. The eggs adhere at the substrate and hatch after about a week, fry are about 8–10 mm long with pelagic attitude like other sturgeons, then after ten days they begin to be demersal.

The eggs develop in gonads of female medusae, which are located in the walls of the manubrium (stomach). Mature eggs are presumably spawned and fertilized in the sea by sperm produced and released by male medusae, as is the case for most hydromedusae, although the related species Turritopsis rubra seems to retain fertilized eggs until the planula stage. Fertilized eggs develop into planula larvae, which settle onto the sea-floor (or even the rich marine communities that live on floating docks), and develop into polyp colonies (hydroids). The hydroids bud new jellyfishes, which are released at about one millimetre in size and then grow and feed in the plankton, becoming sexually mature after a few weeks (the exact duration depends on the ocean temperature; at it is 25 to 30 days and at it is 18 to 22 days).

Perhaps most interesting and compelling is the fact that some amphibians can stay in larval form and still reach sexual maturity—this shows that echinoderm larvae could, theoretically, have become sexually mature and simply stopped morphing into adults, instead evolving into chordate ancestors. Species that show this refusal to leave the larval stage include mud puppies and other salamanders, which either partially or completely show neoteny (also called pedomorphism): retention of juvenile traits or phenotypes after sexual maturity. Garstang's hypothesis (this term is also used for his proposals on gastropod torsion, as described in The Ballad of the Veliger) was revolutionary for both its time and idea: it suggests that not only may single species evolve, but that single life stages of species may evolve into separate organisms. The hypothesis, which Garstang proposed in the early 20th century, seemed far-fetched at the time of its conception and did not receive support until after Garstang's death.

This may serve as an anti- predator strategy to dilute an individual's risk of being predated. As adults, male maguari storks become sexually mature at three years of age, and females at four years. After three weeks of age, Maguari stork nestlings develop defensive behaviour if their nest is approached by an intruder; which is not known for nestlings of other stork species. They crouch forward, partially spread their wings and erect the black feathers on their head, neck and back; followed by a shrill, rasping scream and an attempt to grab a persistent intruder with their bill. In many other stork species, akinesia lasts throughout much of the nestlings’ early life, and the constantly white plumage makes them appear as eggs to potential chick predators. However, in maguari stork nestlings, akinesia ceases much earlier, and the unusual aggressiveness of the young has probably developed as a specialised anti-predator strategy in compensation for the young chicks’ inability to leave the nest due to their slow-developing hallux and the vulnerable position of the nest on the ground.