Abstract
Four green turtle females were tracked by satellite during their post-reproductive migration in the South China Sea. Three of them reached their feeding grounds 923–1551 km distant. During nesting activity, a female was displaced twice, and her return trips to the nesting beach from 11 and 284 km were tracked by a direction-recording data-logger and by satellite, respectively. Part of the journeys occurred coastwise, indicating that leading geographical features had been utilised. The straightness of the turtles' tracks in open seas, both over shallow and deep waters, and their ability to pinpoint distant targets and home after displacement off their usual routes, provides circumstantial evidence for a true navigation mechanism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Abbreviations
- PTT :
-
platform transmitter terminal
References
Balazs GH (1994) Homeward bound: satellite tracking of Hawaiian green turtles from nesting beaches to foraging pastures. In: Schroeder BA, Witherington BE (eds) Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-SEFC-341, pp 205–208
Balazs GH, Craig P, Winton BR, Miya RK (1994) Satellite telemetry of green turtles nesting at French Frigate Shoals, Hawaii, and Rose Atoll, American Samoa. In: Bjorndal KA, Bolten AB, Johnson DA, Eliazar PJ (eds) Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Symposium on the Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. NOAA Tech. Mem. NMFS-SEFSC-351, pp 184–187
Baldwin HA (1972) Long-range radio tracking of sea turtles and polar bear: instrumentation and preliminary results. In: Galler SR, Schmidt-Koenig K, Jacobs GJ, Belleville RE (eds) Animal orientation and navigation. NASA SP-262, Washington, DC, pp 19–37
Batschelet E (1981) Circular statistics in biology. Academic Press, New York
Bramanti M, Dall'Antonia P, Papi F (1988) A new technique to monitor the flight paths of birds. J Exp Biol 134: 467–472
Brown CW (1990) The significance of the South Atlantic equatorial countercurrent to the ecology of the green turtle breeding population of the Ascension Island. J Herpetol 24: 81–84
Carr A (1972) The case for long-range, chemoreceptive piloting in Chelonia. In: Galler SR, Schmidt-Koenig K, Jacobs GJ, Belleville RE (eds) Animal orientation and navigation. NASA SP-262, Washington, DC, pp 469–484
Carr A (1984) The sea turtle. So excellent a fishe. 2nd edition University of Texas Press, Austin
Dall'Antonia L, Dall'Antonia P, Ribolini A (1993) Flight path reconstruction of birds by a route recorder. In: Mancini P, Fioretti S, Cristalli C, Bedini R (eds) Biotelemetry XII, Litografia Felici, Pisa, pp 544–549
Dall'Antonia L, Dall'Antonia P, Benvenuti S, Ioalè P, Massa B, Bonadonna F (1995) The homing behaviour of Cory's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) studied by means of a direction recorder. J Exp Biol 198: 359–362
Ehrenfeld DW, Koch AL (1967) Visual accommodation in the green turtle. Science 155: 827–828
Geyr von Schweppenburg H (1963) Zur Terminologie und Theorie der Leitlinie. J Ornithol 104: 191–204
loalè P, Dall'Antonia P, Dall'Antonia L, Benvenuti S (1994) Flight paths of homing pigeons studied by means of a direction recorder. Ethol Ecol Evol 6: 519–527
Ireland LC (1980) Homing behavior of juvenile green turtles, Chelonia mydas. In: Amlaner CJ, MacDonald DW (eds) A handbook on biotelemetry and radio tracking. Pergamon Press, Oxford New York, pp 761–764
Koch AL, Carr A, Ehrenfeld DW (1969) The problem of open sea navigation: the migration of the green turtle to Ascension Island. J Theor Biol 22: 163–179
Liew HC, Chan EH (1993) Biotelemetry of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in Pulau Redang, Malaysia, during the internesting period. In: Mancini P, Fioretti S, Cristalli C, Bedini R (eds) Biotelemetry XII. Litografia Felici, Pisa, pp 157–163
Liew HC, Chan EH, Luschi P, Papi F (1995) Satellite tracking data on Malaysian Green Turtle migration. Rend Fis Acc Lincei 6: 239–246
Limpus CJ, Miller JD, Parmenter J, Reimer D, McLachlan N, Webb R (1992) Migration of green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta) turtles to and from eastern Australia rookeries. Wildl Res 19: 347–358
Lohmann KJ (1991) Magnetic orientation by hatchling loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta). J Exp Biol 155: 37–49
Lohmann KJ, Lohmann CMF (1993) A light-independent magnetic compass in the leatherback sea turtle. Biol Bull 185: 145–151
Meylan A (1982) Sea turtle migration — evidence from tag returns. In: Bjorndal KA (eds) Biology and conservation of sea turtles. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, pp 91–100
Papi F (1992) General aspects. In: Papi F (ed) Animal homing. Chapman and Hall, London, pp 1–18
Papi F, Liew HC, Luschi P, Chan EH (1995) Long-range migratory travel of a green turtle tracked by satellite: evidence for navigational ability in open sea. Mar Biol 122: 171–175
Renaud ML, Gitschlag GR, Hale JK (1993) Retention of imitation satellite transmitters fiberglassed to the carapace of sea turtles. Herpetol Rev 24: 94–99
Richardson PL (1989) Worldwide ship drift distributions identify missing data. J Geophys Res 94C: 6169–6176
Siegel S (1956) Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York
Taillade M (1993) Trends in satellite-based animal tracking. In: Mancini P, Fioretti S, Cristalli C, Bedini R (eds) Biotelemetry XII. Litografia Felici, Pisa, pp 291–297
Timko RE, Kolz L (1982) Satellite sea turtle tracking. Mar Fish Rev 44: 19–24
Williams TC, Williams JM (1990) The orientation of transoceanic migrants. In: Gwinner E (ed) Bird migration: physiology and ecophysiology. Springer, Berlin, pp 7–21
Yodlowski ML, Kreithen ML, Keeton WT (1977) Detection of atmospheric infrasound by homing pigeons. Nature 265: 725–726
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Luschi, P., Papi, F., Liew, H.C. et al. Long-distance migration and homing after displacement in the green turtle (Chelonia mydas): a satellite tracking study. J Comp Physiol A 178, 447–452 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190175
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00190175