"Under no light but the stars, a green sea turtle hauls herself out of the surf and onto the familiar sand of Alagadi Beach on the northern coast of Cyprus. She doesn't notice any predators as she makes her way up the beach; tonight will be the night. When the turtle reaches a satisfactory spot, she nestles into the warm sand and begins excavating a deep pit. Nothing can distract her; she's gone into a kind of trance."
"She pushes out 100 wet, leathery eggs into the pit. The turtle won't move until she has completed her task, even if humans creep close to measure her shell and tuck a temperature logger in among her eggs. She finishes laying in about 20 minutes, but her work isn't done. Still focused, she spends another few hours laboriously scooping the sand over her eggs. Then she turns around and crawls back into the ocean."
A female green sea turtle emerges at night on Alagadi Beach, digs a deep nest and lays about 100 leathery eggs while remaining motionless and focused. She covers the clutch over several hours and returns to sea, providing no further parental care. Incubation takes about two months, after which the hatchlings emerge and scramble to the ocean where few survive. Many reptiles determine sex by incubation temperature rather than genetics. For green turtles, roughly equal sexes result near 29°C during a critical window, while hotter nests around 33–34°C skew broods strongly female.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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