New Scientist: Japan's loggerheads dine down Mexico way
- wallacejnichols
- May 6, 1995
MANY creatures go out of their way for a favourite snack, but none so far as a loggerhead turtle in search of red crab. Loggerheads swim the entire Pacific Ocean in what is the longest journey made by a marine animal (see Map).
For a long time marine biologists have puzzled over sightings of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) near Baja California, a slender peninsula on Mexico's west coast. The turtles' nearest known nesting grounds are on the coasts of Japan and Australia. Suggestions that they were carried 10 000 kilometres across the Pacific by prevailing currents had generally been dismissed, although one scientist found a single animal near Baja that had been tagged in Japan.
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