The crawling of young loggerhead turtles toward the sea

✍ Scribed by Parker, G. H.

• Book ID: 102888589
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1922
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 522 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-104X
• DOI: 10.1002/jez.1400360304

✦ Synopsis

The crawling of young loggerhead turtles toward the sea.

Newly hatched loggerhead turtles find their way from their nests to the sea in consequence of at least three factors: first, positive geotropism, as shown in their tendencies to move down slopes; second, their response to their retinal images, in that they move toward regions in which the horizon is open and clear and away from those in which it is interrupted by complicated masses, and, third, their probable response to color, in that they move toward blue areas rather than toward those of other colors (Hooker). These animals are not appropriately described as phototropic, for they do not move either toward a source of light or away from it, but they are to be regarded as exhibiting a more complex condition in that they respond to the details of their retinal images rather than to these images as wholes.