Rachel Newer reports for the Smithsonian, July 17, 2014:
Turtles are generally thought of as silent creatures, but recent evidence has emerged that at least 47 turtle species make some form of sound. Those sounds communicate various messages, from social standings to reproductive signals. But it’s not just adult turtles who are speaking their minds. It turns out babies, too, make sounds – even before they hatch from their eggs.
Researchers from Brazil, Mexico and the US got together to study the nests of 12 leatherback sea turtle nests in Oaxaca, Mexico. Starting on day 51, the point at which the babies’s ears should be developed enough to hear sounds, they monitored the nests for any signs of noise. They immediately began detecting sounds, recording more than 300 different noises in total. They classified the sounds into four categories, including chirps, grunts and “complex hybrid tones,” or sounds composed of two parts that they classified as pulse characteristics and harmonic frequency bands.
That latter sound – the most complex of the bunch – was only recorded in nests that contained just eggs, rather than eggs and hatchlings (most had begun hatching by day 55). The baby turtles, the researchers believe, may be coordinating their hatching timing by emitting the sounds. This phenomenon has been observed in other animals ranging from birds to crocodiles, likely as a survival mechanism. In the case of the turtles, hatching en masse brings a certain strength in numbers. While some babies will be picked off by predators, a bird can only eat so many sea turtles at a time, meaning at least a few will make it to the sea.
This finding, the authors point out, means that light pollution might not be the only anthropogenic nuisance threatening baby sea turtle survival. Noise pollution could be affecting them, too.
Matthew 6:24-34
“No one can serve two masters;
for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore I tell you,
do not be anxious about your life,
what you shall eat or what you shall drink,
nor about your body, what you shall put on.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air:
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious
can add one cubit to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they neither toil nor spin;
yet I tell you,
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?
Therefore do not be anxious, saying,
`What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’
For the Gentiles seek all these things;
and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow,
for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”
~Eowyn
