How sea turtles mate

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]A male sea turtle follows a scent so faint, so impossibly subtle, and then he finds her. After weeks of searching across the open ocean, the male and female meet. He circles her slowly.

[00:00:11]Courtship begins with the gentlest of touches. The male nuzzles the female's [music] neck, her head, her shell.

[00:00:16]Ancient. Other males arrive drawn by the same ancient instinct. Now the chase begins. Only the most determined male will win the right to mate. [music] When the female finally accepts her mate, he holds on with powerful curved claws on his front [music] flippers.

[00:00:30]Together they drift near the surface.

[00:00:32]Together they rise to the surface to breathe. Two weeks later under the light of the full moon, [music] she returns to the very same beach where she was born.

[00:00:40]With her powerful rear flippers, she digs. [music] This nest built entirely by instinct will protect what comes next. And then one by one the eggs appear. Soft, white, perfect. [music] Up to 100 of them each one carrying the possibility of a new life. She does not watch. She does not need to. Her body knows exactly what to do. When the last egg is laid, she covers them with the same deliberate care. Sand swept back, packed down, the nest made invisible.

[00:01:04][music] Hidden from every predator, protected by nothing but the warmth of the earth itself. And then she leaves. Exhausted, her body spent, she will never see her children. She will never know if they survived. [music] But she has done everything nature asked of her. Dozens of tiny hatchlings erupt into the moonlit world simultaneously.

[00:01:23][music] And as the sun rises, they reach the sea.

[00:01:26]A new generation of [music] ancient mariners beginning the same journey.