This time of year is nesting season for leatherback sea turtles in the Atlantic. After mating at sea, these big mamas—leatherbacks are the largest of all turtles—haul themselves up onto beaches in the same region where they were born. The turtles dig out nests in the sand and lay a clutch of about 80 fertilized eggs the size of billiard balls. They"ll repeat this ritual a few more times before returning to their migratory lives in the open ocean. About 65 days later, turtle hatchlings will start to poke up through the sand and make a dash toward the safety of the sea. But the odds are against them: Only 1 percent of the hatchlings will live to reach sexual maturity, at around 16 years old.
Nesting season for the leatherbacks
Today in History
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					The Great Glen
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					Hohenzollern Castle near Stuttgart, Germany
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					South Stack Lighthouse, Holy Island, Wales
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					Adorable activism
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					It s Republic Day in India
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					Cheetah in Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania
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					Panda Day
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					A personal collection becomes an institution
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					harlem
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					Behold the blood moon
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					Feast of the Donkey
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					Arctic fox in Norway
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					International Day of the Snow Leopard
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					Sundance Film Festival
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					Four Sisters, thousands of trees
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					Palazzo Zuccari, Rome
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					Lunar eclipse
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					A state-of-the-art lookout on the Rock of Gibraltar
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					Happy Halloween!
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					Celebrating World Wildlife Day
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					Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Washington, DC
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					Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
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					League of Nations, 100 years later
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					Grab onto the handlebars, kid
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					International Sloth Day
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					In praise of the old…the very old
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					Bungle Bungle Range in Purnululu National Park, Australia
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					Flocking together in the Antarctic
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					An historic forest
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					Freeloaders of the avian world
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