Amazing race to the sea, part II. The olive ridley turtle

Here's another amasing race to the sea. The Olive ridley turtle is the smallest of the sea turtles and have a particular special thing about them. The Arribada. The Arribada is that hundreds and sometimes thousands of female turtles has gathered together outside the breeding beaches and then enters the breeding grounds at once, on the same day, the same night. This synchronized breeding also means that the hatchlings get out of their nests at the same time. When thousands and thousands of hatchlings run to the sea it''s absolutely astonishing to follow, just see the video.


Why this happens? Well, scientists have many theories but so far they have not been able to conclude on any specific reason. during the hatchlings race to the sea they often encounter vast amount of predators that are getting a real feast. Still it may be a survival trick. When so many hatch at once there are always big chances for many many of them. This is a known trick for many animalgroups, larger numbers are safer than small numbers.

The Ridley's doesn't only have the habitat of Arribada, in most of their breeding grounds they are more solitare breeders, coming up one and one of the time, over a longer timespan. So that's also an unanswered question, why have these different strategies?

In the area I will go to we will never experience anything like Arribada; on several kilometers beaches we are monitoring we are  really lucky if we discover 60 nests, and they have been lade in a timeinterval for over two months. We feel happy just by the luck of seing the hatchlings from one nest. So we need to always bring our cameras with us, if not our luck may gone by..