Where the Boys Are:
Following the Male Loggerheads
So where do the male sea turtles live,
and why do we seldom see them?
L
By David William Owens
oggerheads (Caretta caretta), like all sea turtles,
take a long time to reach maturity. Twenty-five
or more years may be common. During this very
prolonged early life, the males simply mix in
with all the juvenile females. They forage on the same food
sources and migrate with the same patterns as the females.
However, as sexual maturity approaches, scientists begin to
see differences between male and female behavior.
The sexes often seem to have special foraging areas where
they spend most of the year. Males often seem to hang
out fairly close to a major nesting beach. The assumption
scientists make is that the proximity to nesting beaches gives
this set of males an advantage when the females start to show
up prior to the nesting season. Other males may migrate from
hundreds of miles away like the females usually do.
Satellite tracking studies of males from the major nesting
beaches in central Florida near the Archie Carr National
Wildlife Refuge show those males either living year-round
within a few miles of the beach or migrating from great
distances and living on foraging grounds off the New Jersey
coast or in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus some adult males
migrate short distances while others make very long treks to
near the nesting beaches where most courtship occurs.
Sea turtles engage in courtship rituals and mating behavior
like most vertebrates. A distinctive characteristic however is
that sea turtle courtship can be very aggressive and frenetic
with lots of wild splashing and rapid chases with as many
as four or five males pursuing the same female. Females,
however, call the shots and control the mating entirely. A
female goes through a receptive or “heat” period for just a few
days about a month before she crawls up on the beach to nest
for the first time in the season.
Once she has gone through her receptive period she will
no longer accept a male a