<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ad0b7f3f-d867-4b5b-9f22-f4c553ebd737/64963FF3-D451-464A-BE36-5BC2283E155C/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snappers.htm" href="http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snappers.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.tortoisetrust.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snappers.htm">In the northern parts of their range snapping turtles have a reproductive strategy which scientists call bet-hedging. Its characteristics are high and fluctuating egg mortality, highly variable density independent juvenile mortality, but low and constant adult mortality (long life), delayed maturity, low reproductive effort, annual reproduction, constant reproductive output independent of environmental factors, and smaller than maximum possible clutches. This is generally a response to an unpredictable and highly fluctuating environment, since an individual, which will reproduce with the same amount of effort every year will have a higher probability of actually reproducing during the infrequent favorable years where the whole clutch will survive.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/snappers.htm"> A species which lives only for a short time and dies soon (such as rabbits) need relatively stable conditions to insure that at least two of their offspring will survive to reproduce again </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/64963FF3-D451-464A-BE36-5BC2283E155C/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

New from the makers of Clipmarks:  Amplify.com - Don't just share the news...Amplify it!