Turtle travels nearly 2000km to nest on Queensland coast for first time

May 22, 2024 4:33 PM

Turtle travels nearly 2000km to nest on Queensland coast for first time. An endangered olive ridley turtle may have travelled close to 2000 kilometres to nest on Queensland's east coast in a find described by renowned researcher Col Limpus as quite a phenomenon.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (4 comments total)

Wow, that’s a long way! Channeling Alex Horne, that’s approximately 3 million turtle lengths, or 17 million mice.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:08 PM on May 22 [2 favorites]

There's an old saw that sea turtles/salmon return to the exact river/beach that they hatched from. If you think about it, that would mean the range of breeding sites could only ever decrease. Good on this turtle for proving people wrong!
posted by ockmockbock at 6:43 PM on May 22 [2 favorites]

Here’s to the freaks, doing their own thing!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:48 PM on May 22 [1 favorite]

With salmon, there are outliers that get messed up; their spawn returns to the new location.
posted by porpoise at 11:05 AM on May 24