• Question: It is said that turtles lay their eggs on the same beach they were born on this means it is where their mother was born and their grandmother. If there were two turtles to start the population on one beach then why are there turtles breeding all over the world?????????

    Asked by anon-193444 to Morwenna, Jamal, iainstaniland, Heidi, Emma, Carl on 13 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      That’s such a good question! It is true that turtles lay their eggs on the same beach that they were born – they use the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way home. Female turtles return to their place of birth, but male turtles mate in lots of different locations.
      There are more than one type of turtle though; there are 13 families including Chelydridae (snapping turtles), Dermochelyidae (leatherback sea turtles), Trionychidae (soft-shelled turtles), Testudinidae (tortoises). Within those families there are over 300 species, so it’s unlikely that all of these different types came from just two turtles.

    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      Interesting question! After having a read online about this I have a feeling it may have something to do with there being different specifies of turtles. Did you know that there are 7 different species of sea turtles and they have their own (sometimes overlapping) geographic ranges so maybe that explains it?
      There’s some more info here: http://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/turtle-nesting-site.pdf

    • Photo: Iain Staniland

      Iain Staniland answered on 15 Nov 2018:

      Many animals have what is called “site fidelity” that is they tend to come back to the place they were born to breed. Think of Salmon swimming back up the streams they were born in, and European eels all returning to the Sargasso sea. We see this behaviour in Antarctic fur seals that I study.
      However some animals will get lost, blown off course, or just decide to be different. It is these pioneers that start new colonies and new breeding areas if they manage to successful breed wherever they end up. Turtles although great swimmers are pushed about by ocean currents and can get pushed off course by things such as storms and even hurricanes.

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