<
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/06/turtles-eat-south-america/>
"Camila Ferrara felt “stupid” plunging a microphone near a nest of turtle eggs.
The Brazilian biologist wasn’t sure if she would hear much. She was studying
the giant South American river turtle, one of the world’s largest freshwater
turtles.
“What am I doing?” she recalled asking herself. “I’m recording the eggs?”
Then Ferrara — who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society, a U.S.-based
conservation group — heard it: a quick, barely audible pop within the shells.
The hatchlings seemed to be saying to one another, she said, “‘Come on, come
on, it’s time to wake up. Come on, come on.’ And then all the hatchlings can
leave the nest together.”
Researchers for decades thought of aquatic turtles as hard of hearing and
mostly mute. One popular 1950s textbook claimed turtles “make no appreciable
use of sound in their daily routine.” In the world’s rumbling rivers and
cacophonous oceans, the lumbering reptiles appeared to tread along without much
to say.
But recent recordings of these turtles’ first “words” — before they even hatch
— challenge notions not just of the turtles’ capacity to communicate, but also
of their instinct to care for young. Now the discovery has spurred an urgent
count of this talkative turtle’s numbers, and may shape protections for shelled
creatures in the Amazon and beyond."
Via Bonobo and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
