Скачать или смотреть Poor Baby Sea turtles are preyed upon by Ghost Crabs

Ghost crabs are omnivores, eating vegetation, insects, mole crabs and even sea turtles. Ghost crabs are one of many predators that prey on sea turtle nests. They will eat both the eggs and straggling loggerhead hatchlings. Ghost crabs sometimes dig into a turtle nest and help themselves to the eggs. They will also chase after hatchlings as they race to the water. Thankfully for turtles in North Carolina, almost all nests are monitored to protect the hatchlings as they head to sea. Predators play an important role in every ecosystem which means ghost crabs are doing their job.


ghost crabs are nocturnal scavengers and predators. This is bad for loggerhead hatchlings because that is normally when they come out of the nest to make a run for the ocean. Unfortunately these crabs will just sever the front flipper tendons and eat the eyes, leaving the rest of the body. We often stuff spartina wrack from the beach into crab holes between the nest and the ocean when a nest is due to temporarily slow down these predators that move fast and grab turtles as they go to the water. They are also capable of burrowing into a nest and piercing unhatched eggs. This might begin the spread of bacteria within the egg chamber ruining the changes of a successful hatch. Sometimes crabs will dig up the empty shells after a nest has hatched and spread them around on the sand. This happened numerous times at a nest near 26th Avenue last year.

Hatchlings and young juvenile sea turtles have many natural threats. These threats exist both on land and at sea. Common sea turtle predators include fire ants, crabs, lizards, birds, dogs, raccoons, wild pigs, coyotes, dolphins, sharks and many species of carnivorous fish such as snapper, grouper and barracuda.

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