Status
Endangered
Habitat
Seagrass meadow, coral reef, open ocean
Range
Amazon · Australia
Group
Marine Life
Returns, after thirty years, to the beach where it hatched.
Hatchlings imprint on the geomagnetic signature of their natal beach and, decades later, find it again. The mechanism is still being unpicked; the fidelity is not in doubt.
Sex is determined by sand temperature during incubation. Warmer nests produce females — and on some northern Great Barrier Reef beaches, the ratio has already skewed past ninety-nine percent female.
Frames in the archive
Full gallery
The Return
Raine Island — thirty years to this beach.
