Welcome to the Marine Mammal and wildlife Research and Community Development Expedition blog where you can keep up to date with all the happenings and information from Kenya

Friday, November 5, 2010

And now.....Turtles ahoy!!!

We recently described how GVI had witnessed Humpback dolphins and Bottlenose dolphins mating. Last week the marine team were out near Kisite, having just enjoyed a great day of snorkelling and spotting dolphins, when Jon, one of the marine staff team thought he had spotted more dolphins. On approach there were limbs flailing and large amounts of splashing and it quickly became apparent that it was in fact turtles having sex!! These were green turtles that were mating and there was one female and two males involved. Mating can be a risky business for female green turtles as the males (sometimes more than one at a time) can prevent the female from coming up for air during sex and cause her to drown. Female sea turtles can store sperm from one or more males in their oviducts and all of the eggs can then be fertilized in the same season without repeated mating!



-- Green turtles mating --
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