Underreported in-water behaviours of the loggerhead sea turtle: Getting buried in the sand

Abstract

In this short report, we provide a direct evidence that loggerhead sea turtles Caretta caretta are capable of partially burying themselves in the sand by actively moving their front flippers and stirring the sea bottom sediment. In particular, we report the cases of three male loggerhead sea turtles from Zakynthos island, Greece, which, after obtaining a resting position on a sandy spot at the sea bottom, they actively performed digging and stirring movements with their front flippers, resulting to the sand getting raised at the sea column. When the sand settled back, the turtles ended up half-buried and camouflaged. To our current knowledge, this self-burying behaviour has not been described in the literature.