Embryonic Turtles Communicate to Coordinate Hatching
Murray River turtles communicate with their siblings while they are still in their shells, buried under the soil, in order to coordinate when they hatch.
Achieving this synchronicity isn’t easy. Although the eggs are always laid at the same time in the same nest, those at the top of the nest near the sun-drenched soil develop much faster than those buried deeper in the cooler soil. However, Murray River turtles are able to tell whether their fellow hatchlings are more or less advanced and adapt their pace of development accordingly, allowing the slow-coaches to play catch-up.
