Shell shock

By Tim Elliott
Updated March 29 2014 - 6:08pm, first published 5:28pm
Life and times: A turtle swims in the waters off Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Photo: Paul Harris
Life and times: A turtle swims in the waters off Lady Elliot Island in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Photo: Paul Harris

Life's a bitch, but it's particularly bitchy if you're a baby sea turtle. Baby sea turtles are born buried beneath 60 centimetres of sand, in a nest packed with up to 120 of their siblings. Provided they have not already been eaten by ghost crabs or snakes or dug up by dogs, dingoes or foxes, the hatchlings emerge from their eggs and head to the surface, burrowing up and out, crawling over the top of one another in a process that can take up to a week. Once at the top, they wipe the sand from their eyes with their front flippers, then make a beeline for the ocean. They are so small, just 4.5 centimetres long, that almost anything they encounter - shells, sticks - can represent a virtually insurmountable obstacle.

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