Baby sea turtle still attached to egg yolk

Sometimes, even when they are already as perfect as this little one, something happens that keeps sea turtle embryos from reaching that final stage of their development.

Sometimes it can even be as simple as the tide reaching the nest; that can be enough to keep them from being born.

Thankfully, most of its siblings made it out of the nest!

We find these little ones, still attached to the egg yolk, when we check the nests after all the others have already hatched, for conservation purposes.

Sea Turtle hatchlings usually come out between the last and the first hours of the day, when the temperatures are nicer and they won't overheat, however, on cloudy/rainy days, they can come out at any time.

Sea Turtles spend a few days inside the nest, after hatching.

First, they absorb what's left of the yolk sac and wait for their plastron to straighten out, and then it can take up to 48 hours for them to surface, buried alive during that whole time... And then they emerge, and find themselves in a completely different world... A world only the females who reach adulthood will see again... And then it begins, the long crawl towards their new life... When they hatch, sea turtles crawl to the ocean, where the survivors spend the rest of their lives.

Males never go back to land, but females have to, so that they can nest.

They find their way back to the same beach where they hatched, decades later, then crawl up the beach, usually when it is dark, and when they find the perfect spot, the digging begins.

It can take a whole hour to dig a nest, then lay the eggs, cover it up, and make sure nobody finds it, because that is all the parental care they are going to get: making sure the eggs are as safe as possible before the mother goes back to the ocean.

The one video is an Olive Ridley, the second smallest species, but the most abundant one, although it is listed as a Vulnerable species.