Rare turtle travels 7,000 km to breed!
Toronto: How could a contemporary of the great dinosaurs survive to this day?
A rare leatherback turtle, which has existed since the time of the
dinosaurs, has been found to be adept at making the longest ocean journey to
breed in warmer places.
Fitted with a satellite transmitter by Canadian scientists to track its
journey, the turtle - which is the also world's largest turtle growing up to
two metres long and weighing up to 500 kilogramme - travelled over 7,000 km
to be found on the coast of Colombia in South America.
The 149-centimetre-long turtle named Nueva Esperanza kept sailing for over a
year to reach the coast of Colombia, the Canadian Press quoted
researchers at the Canadian Sea Turtle Network in Halifax.
The researchers said their counterparts in Colombia tracked the device and
found the turtle after the lengthy journey to be nesting on a beach. The
turtle makes the ocean journey to breed in the warm beaches of the Caribbean
and South America.
The researchers said the data from the transmitter on the turtle will help
them study the journey pattern of the species and take steps to preserve
them.
After exisiting for hundreds of millions of years, it is now an endangered
species in Canada.-IANS
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