Some Galápagos ‘yellow’ sea turtles remain homebodies, surprising scientists

The Galápagos Islands are the only known place on Earth where the black and yellow genetic ‘morphs’ of green sea turtles coexist. Here, scientists monitored the movements of nine yellow-morph turtles in the archipelago with satellite tracking for up to 418 days. Five stayed faithful to the waters around a single island for the duration of the study, while the remainder trekked between two or three islands, but exclusively during the coolest months of the year. The authors concluded that yellow-morph green turtles in the Galápagos are remarkable homebodies for most of their lives, although it is likely that they disperse long-distance every few years to breed in the western Pacific.

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