November 6, 2014 — The bones of sea turtles have annual rings like those found in trees, and chemical markers within them give scientists a detailed view of the animal's life history.
Where have you been all these years?
That's a question scientists have been asking sea turtles for a long time. After the turtles hatch and waddle into the sea, they're pretty much off the radar until they turn up as juveniles on beaches that might be half a world away. But thanks to new technology, scientists are finally getting some answers.
One of those new technologies involves skeletochronology. "Just like trees have annual rings, so do the bones of sea turtles," said Cali Turner Tomaszewicz, a scientist at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. "And you can analyze those rings to get all kinds of information about the animal's life history."
The rings are most visible in the humerus bones, which form the upper arms of humans but in sea turtles are found in the flipper. Turner Tomaszewicz collects the bones from the bodies of sea turtles that are found dead on beaches in Northern Mexico and California. She works mainly with Eastern Pacific green turtles and North Pacific loggerheads, both of which are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
Read the full story from NOAA Fisheries