Turtle Travels Across Atlantic

A Loggerhead Turtle

Image by coda

A lone loggerhead turtle made headlines this week. The turtle named Aurora was originally captured in the Canary Islands and in July 2009, had a signal transmitter attached to it's shell which was followed and tracked using satellite technology. This was part of a research effort from the Environmental Observatory of Granadilla, Tenerife Island.

The loggerhead turtle is one of the more common turtles and can weigh in excess of 150 kilograms.

In a period of only 5 months Aurora managed to cross the Atlantic and reach the Caribbean, a distance in excess of 6000 kilometers. Meaning Aurora the turtle covered an average distance of about 30 kilometers each day.

Turtles, if lucky enough to survive their first few weeks after birth tend to take to the ocean and travel great distances before then returning to their birth place in the hopes of breeding. It is through this that one can tell Aurora was native to the Caribbean, and is now essentially back home.