We watch baby turtles hatch and make their way into the open ocean. We watch them when they show up in coastal waters years later as ‘teenagers;. But where do they go when they are growing up? That is what Kate Mansfield of the University of Central Florida and fellow researchers set about to discover for loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta). 17 young turtles – all between 3.5 and 9 months old and reaching a maximum length of just 18 cm were tagged with small solar-powered satellite transmitters. And what an adventure these guys had. Staying mostly at the surface, these critters were found enjoying a wide area of the ocean past the continental shelf, – with one turtle travelling up to 2,672 miles! What was particularly surprising for the researchers was that they didn’t just hang out in gyre-associated currents. Sometimes they went off exploring...

Read the study: http://dx.doi10.1098/rspb.2013.3039.