Making The Nest

The female sea turtle can be very picky. She wants the best possible location to build her nest. Sea turtles do not take care of their young. She chooses the best site, lays her eggs and disguises her nest and then goes back to her ocean home.

Once she finds a suitable spot, she digs a body pit by using her back and back flippers. Depending on the size of the female, this body pit can measure much wider than your outstretched arms! Notice in the picture how small the beach chair is compared to the body pit of the female leatherback turtle! After she creates this wide body pit, she digs a chamber with her back flippers. It is in this chamber that she lays her clutch of eggs.
During egg-laying the female is not very aware of her surroundings because she is concentrating on laying her clutch. She does not defend the eggs against predators or poachers. It is against the law to take turtle’s eggs and people who do so are called poachers. Even if the eggs are eaten by small animals or collected by humans, she will still cover the nest!

Some turtle species lay more eggs than others anywhere between 50 to 200 or more eggs. The more eggs that are laid the bigger the chance that at least one hatchling will survive to adulthood. The round eggs are usually the size of a golf ball. The eggs come out of the female either one at a time or in small groups. The eggs have a leathery shell and are surrounded by a thick slime that acts like a cushion when they drop into the sand. After laying her clutch, the female uses her back flippers to cover the nest with sand.

Sitting in a natural warmer
Did you know that it is the temperature of the sand that determines whether a hatchling is a boy or a girl? Really, it’s true! Sea turtles do not have sex chromosomes like other animals and humans so this means that whether a hatchling is a boy or girl is not decided at the time of fertilization. Instead it’s the temperature around each egg that decides if a boy or girl sea turtle will hatch! Higher temperatures produce girls and but boys prefer cooler temperatures.

What this means is that there are things that can affect the temperature of the beach and also the nest so that there are more boy hatchlings than girl hatchlings or the reverse. Humans can affect the nest by taking away plants and bushes from the beach that bring natural shade. Climate change may also mean more girl hatchlings than boy hatchlings. Can you think of a reason why more females than males can be a problem for sea turtles?

CONTINUE: The Life of a Hatchling »