Sea Turtle Crawls

Sometimes you don’t actually have to see the turtle to know which species has been on a beach. When nesting females come onto a beach, they leave tracks or “crawls” made by their front flippers. These “crawls” are distinctive for each species.

Loggerhead

  1. Alternating, comma-shaped flipper marks
  2. Wavy and smoothed track center with no thin, straight, and well-defined tail-drag mark
  3. No regular markings from front flippers at the margins of the track

Green

  1. Parallel flipper marks as from a “butterfly-stroke” crawling pattern
  2. Ridged track center with a thin, straight, and well-defined tail-drag mark that is punctuated by tail-point marks
  3. Regular markings from front flippers at the margins of the track

Leatherback

  1. Parallel flipper marks as from a “butterfly-stroke” crawling pattern
  2. Ridged track center with a thin, straight, and well-defined tail-drag mark that is punctuated by tail-point marks
  3. Extensive markings from front flippers at the margins of the track and extending the total track width to 6 to 7 feet

Who made the crawl?

Track A
(photo by Kellie Pendoley)
Track B
(photo by Matthew Godfrey)
Track C
(photo by Stephanie Kern)

False Crawls

Sometimes a female will go up onto a beach and decide that she doesn’t want to lay a nest there. This is called a “false crawl.”