The navigational feats of green sea turtles migrating from Ascension Island investigated by satellite telemetry
Luschi, P.; Hays, G.C.; Del Seppia, C.; Marsh, R.; Papi, F. (1998). The navigational feats of green sea turtles migrating from Ascension Island investigated by satellite telemetry. Proc. - Royal Soc., Biol. Sci. 265: 2279-2284
In: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. The Royal Society: London. ISSN 0962-8452; e-ISSN 1471-2954, meer
Previous tagging studies of the movements of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) nesting at Ascension Island have shown that they shuttle between this remote target in the Atlantic Ocean and their feeding grounds on the Brazilian coast, a distance of 2300 km or more. Since a knowledge of sea turtle migration routes might allow inferences on the still unknown navigational mechanisms of marine animals, we tracked the postnesting migration of six green turtle females from Ascension Island to Brazil. Five of them reached the proximity of the easternmost stretch of the Brazilian coast, covering 1777-2342 km in 33-47 days. Their courses were impressively similar for the first 1000 km, with three turtles tracked over di¡erent dates following indistinguishable paths for the first 300 km. Only the sixth turtle made some relatively short trips in different directions around Ascension. The tracks show that turtles (i) are able to maintain straight courses over long distances in the open sea; (ii) may perform exploratory movements in different directions; (iii) appropriately correct their course during the journey according to external information and (iv) initially keep the same direction as the west-south-westerly £owing current, possibly guided by chemical cues.
Dataset
Luschi, P., G.C. Hays, C. Del Seppia, R. Marsh and F. Papi. 1998. The navigational feats of green sea turtles migrating from Ascension Island investigated by satellite telemetry. Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. 265: 2279-2284, meer
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