The Navigation System of the Sea Turtle

Researchers describe the sea turtle’s migration from its feeding ground to its nesting beach as “one of the most remarkable acts in the animal kingdom.

Every two to four years, the female turtle comes ashore to lay her eggs—numbering about a hundred in a single nest—and conceal them in the sand. Once hatched, the baby turtles make their way to the ocean. They then embark on an amazing journey that, all told, may cover a distance of some 8,000 miles (12,900 km). Years later, the female turtles, now mature, return to lay their own eggs—at the same stretch of beach where they were hatched!

How do sea turtles navigate? “It seems they inherited some sort of magnetic map,” says biologist Kenneth Lohmann of the University of North Carolina in the United States, quoted in National Geographic News. Research indicates that the turtle may determine its position by detecting the angle and intensity of the earth’s magnetic field. This amazing ability enables these tiny, defenseless hatchlings to embark on their 8,000-mile (12,900-km) migration around the Atlantic, “and they do it alone without following other turtles.