How do sea turtles nest?
The nesting process consists of 8 stages. Firstly, the turtle emerges from the sea and ascends the beach, searching for a suitable nesting site (somewhere dark and quiet). Once at the chosen nesting site, she begins body pitting (BP). Using all four flippers, she gets rid of dry surface sand beneath her which would otherwise fall into her egg chamber (EC) (forming a depression). Following BP, she commences digging her nest (DN). Now she uses only her rear flippers, alternately, like hands, and scoops out flippers full of damp sand. She scoops sand in one flipper and rests this flipper on the surface, before throwing sand from her other flipper to her side. She uses her emptied flipper to remove more sand from inside the EC and flicks excavated sand from her other flipper. When she can reach no deeper, she pauses and begins contractions, her rear flippers raising off the sands surface simultaneously. Soon she begins laying eggs (LE).
The nesting process consists of 8 stages. Firstly, the turtle emerges from the sea and ascends the beach, searching for a suitable nesting site (somewhere dark and quiet). Once at the chosen nesting site, she begins body pitting (BP). Using all four flippers, she gets rid of dry surface sand beneath her which would otherwise fall into her egg chamber (EC) (forming a depression). Following BP, she commences digging her nest (DN). Now she uses only her rear flippers, alternately, like hands, and scoops out flippers full of damp sand. She scoops sand in one flipper and rests this flipper on the surface, before throwing sand from her other flipper to her side. She uses her emptied flipper to remove more sand from inside the EC and flicks excavated sand from her other flipper. When she can reach no deeper, she pauses and begins contractions, her rear flippers raising off the sands surface simultaneously. Soon she begins laying eggs (LE). Following each contraction, she drops between 1-4 egg
