turtle Archives - usatoday24

One of the 100 most harmful species in the world has settled in Spain. It’s a cute domestic turtle

March 18, 2026 by usatoday24

These are not good times for Spanish tortoises. On the peninsula we only have two native species of freshwater turtle: the leprous ones (Mauremys leprosa) and the European ones (Emys orbicularis). Both are in decline and it is not (only) because of hunting and the destruction of their habitats; It is, above all, for something much more prosaic: the hundreds of turtles that are sold every year and that they end up abandoned in rivers, reservoirs or ponds. This is not new; we have been around since 97 prohibiting the sale of more and more exotic turtles. The problem is that the situation has gotten completely out of hand. The turtles have become a real plague in the interior provinces. Turtles are a terrible gift. And, as I say, we have known this for almost 30 years. The State (in 1997, in 2013 and in 2025) has successively prohibited the sale of more and more species of turtles. It hasn’t helped much: every time a species is banned, it is replaced by another. Especially between individuals. They all end up in the same way: in the natural environment. The best example is less than a year old: in May 2025, the Ministry expanded the Spanish Catalog of Invasive Exotic Species incorporating the two genera of turtles (Pseudemys and Mauremys) that the stores began to sell when the Trachemys in 2013. There is no systematic study of the problem, but the signs are clear. In Salamanca, for example there is confirmed presence of painted turtles and Florida red-bellied turtles. And in Extremadura, according to the Boardthere are eight exotic turtles for every native one in the Guadiana. In Catalonia, to finish the walk through the peninsular geography, 17 different species have been found in different natural areas. And it’s not nonsense. After all, the Florida turtle is one of the 100 most harmful invasive alien species in the world. Although They have been banned for more than 30 years throughout Europe, they continue to wreak havoc. These species represent the second cause of biodiversity loss in the world. What to do if we have a turtle at home? It is important to note that, one way or another, it is only legal to have banned turtles at home if they were purchased before the ban and were declared at the time to the relevant authority. But its transfer, sale or reproduction is prohibited; and, of course, release them into the natural environment. Image | Pedro Novales In Xataka | There are more and more turtles on the beaches of the Spanish Mediterranean. This is not good news for anyone involved.

the footprint of a turtle stampede from 80 million years ago

February 6, 2026 by usatoday24

Sometimes the older ones paleontological discoveries They do not occur in planned excavations and with large studies behind them, but by pure chance in places where no one should be. This is precisely what happened in 2019 on Mount Còrneo in Italy where two climbers entered in a restricted area of the natural park and they came across something that did not fit into the rock: hundreds of strange brands on a vertical wall. We already know what it is. Now, a study published in Cretaceous Research has revealed what those marks really are: the fossil trace of a stampede of sea turtles fleeing in terror from an earthquake that occurred 80 million years ago. The forbidden zone. The discovery is attributed to Luca Natali and Paolo Sandroni, who were climbing a limestone wall in the Scaglia Rossa formation. And what they found was neither more nor less than a canvas of more than 1,000 fingerprints distributed in an area of about 200 square meters. The location where they were found is no less, since it is key and at the same time problematic. As it is a vertical wall, which in the Cretaceous It was a flat seabed, access for scientists was almost impossible. That is why they had to resort to drones to be able to photogrammetrically map the site and study the furrows without risking the life of any researcher. CSI Cretaceous. In order to clarify this discovery, the researchers used the magnetostratigraphythe analysis of magnetic polarity of the rocks, to date the event to the Campanian, about 80 million years ago. The scene. To locate ourselves, 80 million years ago this vertical wall was a deep seabed that It was about 300 meters deepcompletely calm and muddy. But an earthquake shook the area, causing an immediate reaction: a group of sea turtles panicked. And as anyone would do, the reaction was to start swimming frantically towards deeper waters, hitting the bottom with their alerts and leaving those semi-lunar marks. Minutes or hours after the turtles passed, an avalanche of sediment caused by the same earthquake, known as turbiditecovered the footprints instantly, sealing them as if it were an “underwater Pompeii.” Why turtles? The identification of these traces has not been an easy task for the researchers who have had to discard among the possibilities in front of them. At first, other inhabitants of the Cretaceous were considered fish, plesiosaurs or mosasaurs. However, analysis of the furrows told a different story. The first thing to keep in mind is that they couldn’t be fish because the marks had bilateral symmetry. They also could not be plesiosaurs since the pattern of the markings did not fit with the four-fin movement of these reptiles. In this way, for the researchers, the semilunar marks, consistent with turtle fins, left no doubt that it was this marine animal of the time. Healthy skepticism. As is often the case in paleontology, not everyone is 100% convinced. Thus, there are different well-known experts who point out that, although the seismic theory is solid, attributing the marks definitively to the turtles requires more comparative evidencemaking it a rare fossil record in deep pelagic environments. Although what is truly interesting in this case is not the species, but the paradigm shift. Right now, most fossils told us about the death of an animal or its anatomy. But now we have seen how these footprints tell us about their behavior in a moment of terror experienced millions of years ago. Images | Cretaceous Research In Xataka | The skull that changes everything: a million-year-old fossil suggests that ‘Homo sapiens’ did not come from Africa

The loggerhead turtle is increasingly common on the Spanish coasts. It is a bad sign about the Mediterranean

December 21, 2025 by usatoday24

The Mediterranean is being invaded. The ‘fried egg’ jellyfish or the imposing lionfish They are two undesirable new tenants, but there is one animal that is much less annoying, It is not invasive and yet it is a problem that it is colonizing the western Mediterranean. This is the loggerhead sea turtle. And it is another adaptive response to climate change. The loggerhead turtle. Its scientific name is Caretta caretta and is one of only two species of sea turtle (the other is the Chelonia mydasor green turtle) that reproduces in the Mediterranean beaches. If you look at the map, its distribution is worldwide. They enjoy warm waters with a wide range of surface temperatures (a range between 13 and 28 degrees Celsius), but things change during the spawning season. Nesting females prefer temperatures between 27 and 28 degrees, making Mediterranean beaches an ideal area to lay eggs. The traditional spawning grounds in the Mediterranean were the eastern area, especially the Greek beaches, but something is happening: an increase in temperatures is creating a double imbalance. A determining factor. It is curious, but temperature controls both the willingness of turtles to nest in an area and, and this is almost the most important, the sixth of their hatchlings. The sexual determination of chelonians depends on the incubation temperature in the eggs buried in the sand. With this strict fan of 27-28 degrees, a balanced population between males and females is achieved. With higher temperatures, there is a imbalance towards the predominant birth of females. This is a problem for the turtle population itself, since an imbalance of this type would put the species at risk. And even more curious is that mature females have instinctively found a biological refuge on the coasts of the western Mediterranean, where the beaches are somewhat colder (for the moment). The objective is to ensure greater sexual diversity. Increase in nesting. HE esteem that, in the Mediterranean basin, there are about 8,000 eggs per year. The traditional places are Greece, Türkiye, Libya, Tunisia and Cyprus, but little by little we are seeing that change in the balance. In 2001 found a first nest on a beach in Almería, in Vera, and since then loggerhead turtle nests have been recorded in other parts of the geography of the western Mediterranean. The turtles They are spawning in Spainbut also in Italy, Malta and Tunisia. In addition to the Almeria coast, the areas in which the turtles are creating nests are Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Murcia and they have been observed in Fuengirola and Marbella. Conservation and awareness. There are organizations that, increasingly, point out that nesting has been increasing in recent years, and regardless of what it means at a climatic level, it is another problem due to the human factor. In countries “accustomed” to this, where nests are protected, the population knows not to interfere with them. In others where turtles are beginning to nest, it is possible that we, maliciously or unintentionally, interfere with the reproductive cycles of a species that is considered under threat. That is why it is also they throw citizen awareness campaigns to inform about them and how to proceed if someone finds a nest that is not already being monitored. For example, performing events in schools on biology and conservation of the species. It is also perform awareness work with fishermen as a target audience, since fishing activities are one of the main causes of death. Likewise, when a clutch is detected, there is the possibility of protecting the nest in situ (where the turtles have to hatch correctly and take the infernal path to the sea) or take the eggs to controlled breeding centerswhere they mature and are subsequently released. Turtle nursery in Fuerteventura Poison beyond the heat. But there is another problem apart from climate change and human action: the pollutants that are poisoning the turtles. In recent years there has been studied the liver of at least a dozen loggerhead turtles, finding traces of PCB, PCDF and PCDD. These are chemicals, pesticides that alter the immune and hormonal systems of turtles. It is something that comes from the hand of the esurface runoff carrying chemical waste from agriculture and industry to the rivers that subsequently flow into the sea. And torture, unfortunately, is becoming a thermometer of the state of our waters, both in terms of temperature and the presence of chemicals that are already altering the fauna. Images | H. Zell, Dionysisa303 In Xataka | The owner of Loro Parque in the Canary Islands charges against animal rights activists. And with this it reopens the debate on the existence of zoos

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