REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR IN SEA TURTLES

Sea turtles are solitary marine animals that spend most of their time swimming. They usually do not interact among themselves except during courting and mating.

COURTSHIP AND MATING

sea turtles court and mate within a short period of time prior to the female's nesting. Male turtles almost never return to land after they leave the beach. It is only the females that come to land for nesting.
During mating the males court the female by biting the back of their neck and if the female do not resist the male he grips the back of her shell with its claws. His tail is then folded under her shell to copulate.
During the mating season, several males may compete and even fight among themselves in order to mate with a female--they are exhibiting human behaviour here, ah well😁. Females too, may mate with several males prior to nesting. The sperms of all the males are stored and when she lays they eggs they would have already been fertilized by different males--oh okay, what if this could happen in humans, how would it be? 😱😸. However, this behaviour maintains high genetic diversity in the population.

NESTING

Nesting is done by only the female. She makes her way out of the sea slowly and crawls to find a suitable place filled with sand where she can make a nest for her eggs. Some species of sea turtles nest twice during a nesting season and others once whiles others can nest as many as ten times in a single nesting season. Nesting is done only at night.

LAYING OF EGGS AND EMERGING FROM THE NEST

Eggs are laid only during the night in the well constructed nest made by the female turtle 🐢. After digging a sufficiently large hole in the sand two or three eggs drop out at a time into the hole with mucous being secreted through out the laying of the eggs. A female can lay averagely 80 eggs. After she has finished laying the eggs she carefully covers them with the sand and returns to the sea. Once in a while she returns to her nest and sits on it for sometimes.
Incubation period is about two months but it also depends on the temperature of the sand. The hotter the sand, the faster the development of the embryo.

EMERGENCE FROM THE NEST
After the eggs have successfully been incubated and hatched, the baby turtles dig their way out of the nest and crawl into the sea. Digging out of the nest is a group effort and may take days--Unity is power💪. They must crawl fast into the sea or they may die from dehydration.

CONCLUSION
Sea turtles are wonderful creatures which are well known but understudied.