THE ATLAS IN THEIR HEAD

Sea turtles are equipped with their own navigation system. When the hatchlings first leave the beach they use the Earth’s magnetic field to determine their location, and this also later enables the females to relocate the place where they were born. Once they reach reproductive maturity, which takes between 20 and 40 years, the turtles will travel regularly between their feeding and nesting zones, which may be thousands of miles apart. Females return to the same beach to lay their eggs where they themselves hatched, thanks to a sort of magnetic map in their head. Healthy sea turtles live for decades. As they mature to adulthood and reproduce they’ll inhabit a variety of environments, including coastal waters and the open sea. During the course of their lives they travel long distances through the ocean and visit the coastlines of many nations.