Where do baby sea turtles grow up?

 

A lot of us have seen the cute nature documentaries where a big female sea turtle manages to crawl up on a beach, dig a big divot in the sand, and pump out a bunch of slimy turtle eggs before making its ungainly way back to the ocean.   And then we've seen the cute little sea turtle pups climb out of the hole and slap their way to the waves, if they aren't eaten by the waiting herons or hungry raccoons.  And they if they make it past the surfline, the barracudas are waiting to slurp them up as hors d'oeuvres before the skipjack course.

But obviously a valiant and clever few of those little slappers manages to grow up and become a big sea turtle too.  But where?  That question has been unanswered for many years.

Now, at least for some of them, there's an answer.

Scientists uncover longtime mystery about where some sea turtles go after hatching: The Sargasso Sea

"Scientists at the University of Central Florida attached tiny solar-powered tracking devices to 21 green sea turtles’ shells, then tracked them for 152 days. Fourteen of the turtles headed to the Sargasso Sea, a body of water defined not by land boundaries but by North Atlantic currents."

Well, I would expect that they can hide in the sargassum weed from the barracudas.  And at least the sargassum weed is good for something other than washing up on the beach and turning into a stinking mass of organic glop with floats.