What are the odds...

So I went down into the basement this morning to find about 500 crickets crawling all over the place. This got me pretty hot headed. Apparently they had escaped from a box of crickets I had received from a dealer and left closed to await this morning to open - no it was not open yet but they were everywhere.

Well as I was scanning the room for more to stomp on I was distracted by an unexpected scene in the turtle tank. There were my Musk Turtle (male) and my Eastern Painted Turtle (fem.) going at it. This immediately calmed me down because it was pretty interesting. It also was pretty comical looking to me, but pretty serious business for both of them - I guess!

The Musk Turtle has had that tank pretty much to himself for the 8 or so years we have had him; and over those years he sometimes tried to mate with stones and pieces of terra cotta flower pot in his tank. Just recently the Painted Turtle needed to come in due to some unexpected early cold nights and there was no other space, and it was hectic around here so no time to arrange for other space. Then when I got two available tanks, as luck would have it, both got cracked. So in together they stayed for a few days. I guess that was long enough to get acquainted in Turtle Town!

Now one has to wonder what are the odds of a successful mating. I imagine that time will tell. Although my guess is that it will not come to fruition, that will not be known for a while yet.

Anyone know the mating to egg laying time period of the Eastern Painted Turtle?