Sea turtles return to where they drifted as babies
Posted by staff / May 27, 2014 ocean currentsSea turtlesUniversity of Southampton
Where little sea turtle hatchlings drift in ocean currents determines their migrations and selection of feeding sites as adults, new research from the University of Southampton shows.
When they breed, adult sea turtles return to the beach where they were born. After breeding, adult sea turtles typically migrate several hundreds to thousands of kilometers to their feeding habitats.
“Hatchlings’ swimming abilities are pretty weak, and so they are largely at the mercy of the currents,” says Rebecca Scott, who is based at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. “If they drift to a good site, they seem to imprint on this location, and then later actively go there as an adult—and because they’re bigger and stronger they can swim there directly.”
See full story and video at Futurity.
Photo credit: Sheilapic76/Flickr
Comments are off for this post.