Turtles

Image shows three turtles on a sandy mound surrounded by water, in a natural environment
A rare turtle species is further threatened by Brazil's growing hydroelectric power industry.

Hydroelectric plants put turtle habitats at risk

In a recent study, scientists in Brazil are sounding the alarm for the Williams' side-necked turtle (Phrynops williamsi), a rare species found only in Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest and neighboring Pampa grasslands. The growing hydroelectric power industry in the country poses a grave threat to these turtles, already classified as "Vulnerable" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Sea turtle hatchlings
Sea turtle hatchlings

US Navy safeguards nesting sites of sea turtles at Virginia's beaches

Naturalized dunes line the shoreline, serving as a defense against storm surges and preserving vital wildlife habitats. This beach is a prime nesting spot for sea turtles, being where loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley and green sea turtles lay their eggs from mid-May through August.

Executive Officer of NAS Oceana Captain Josh Appezzato and his team of sea turtle patrollers diligently search the beach at sunrise daily.

Newly hatched loggerhead sea turtles
Newly hatched loggerhead sea turtles

Record number of Loggerhead Turtle Nests in Florida

Loggerhead Marinelife Center (LMC) is a non-profit education and ocean conservation facility located on the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach County, Florida.

The research team at LMC monitors a 9,5-mile stretch of beach from Juno Beach up to Jupiter Island between March and October. Juno Beach is one of the world's most densely nested sea turtle beaches in the world!

An adult green turtle from the Karpaz nesting beach
An adult green turtle from the Karpaz nesting beach

Egyptian lagoon is preferred foraging ground for Cyprus' green turtles

Researchers have discovered that Lake Bardawil in Egypt is the preferred foraging spot for female turtles that lay eggs at key rookeries in Cyprus.

Situated at the northern coast of the Sinai Peninsula, Lake Bardawil is a large, shallow lagoon with an artificial opening that connects to the sea. Initially created as a fishery in the 1950s, it became an ideal seagrass habitat for adult green turtles.

Turtle on beach
Turtle on beach

Florida's turtles are now mostly born female

Rising temperatures are making it too hot for Florida’s turtles to enter the dating scene—literally.

The recent heat waves have raised the temperature of the sand on some beaches so much that nearly all turtles born in the last four summers have been female.

A turtle's gender depends on the temperature of the developing eggs, and this is dependent on the temperature of the sand in which the eggs are buried.

Merlin's Sentience: The Story of a Sea Turtle

Merlin, the sea turtle, illustration by Ila France Porcher
Merlin, the sea turtle. Illustration by Ila France Porcher

Sighting a sea turtle on a dive is always a pleasure. However, few know much about what they are like as animals. Being reptiles, it is assumed that they are essentially on automatic—emotionless and thoughtless. But we changed our minds about that when Merlin came. Ila France Porcher relays the tale of rehabilitating a sick sea turtle in Tahiti, at a time when turtles were often hunted for food.

Sea turtles to spend more time house-hunting in the future

In the future, sea turtles in the US will find it harder to find suitable nesting habitat, due to climate change, rising sea levels and coastal development.

A team led by Florida State University came to this conclusion after their research which modelled the suitability of coastal habitats in the eastern United States by 2050 for sea turtle nesting, after considering predicted sea-level rise and future climates.

Their findings were recently published in the Regional Environmental Change journal.

Baby loggerhead

Do young loggerhead turtles swim or drift?

Despite good swimming abilities, juvenile loggerhead turtles are thought to drift passively for a significant portion of their existence on the high seas

However, a study by researchers from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that turtles were swimming against the prevailing current in a statistically significant pattern at a rate of 30 cm/sec, which indicates an ability to detect the current flow and orient themselves to swim into the current flow direction.

This study provides (...) compelling evidence that these turtles are able to resist such transport using some mechanism not yet fully understood.

—Dr. Donald Kobayashi, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Turtles and plastic bags
Plastics floating in the ocean build a coating of algae and microorganisms that smells edible to turtles.

Why do sea turtles eat plastic? Perhaps because it smells good

To understand sea turtle behavior around ocean plastics, the research team compared how sea turtles in a lab setting reacted to smelling odors of turtle food, ocean-soaked plastic, clean plastic and water.

The turtles ignored the scents of clean plastic and water, but responded to the odors of food and ocean-soaked plastics by showing foraging behavior. This included poking their noses out of the water repeatedly as they tried to smell the food source, and increasing their activity as they searched.