90 leatherback turtle eggs, the world’s largest and endangered species of sea turtle, were discovered in Ecuador in a reserve on the Pacific coast, the Environment Ministry said Thursday.
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In the Galera San Francisco reserve in the province of Esmeraldas, bordering Colombia, “90 eggs were discovered in the fourth nest of the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) listed since the start of the 2020-2021 nesting season”, a specified the ministry in a press release.
Other nests were discovered in the neighboring province of Manabi (southwest), where since January around 70 leatherback turtles have been born, a species in danger of disappearing on these coasts of the East Pacific Ocean.
The 90 eggs of these turtles, which as adults can grow up to three meters in length and weigh up to a ton, were found by guards at the reserve, who protected the nest and set up a controller temperature to monitor their evolution.
“It is very important to identify this species of marine fauna so vulnerable, especially since its nesting is not frequent on our equatorial coast,” said one of the guards, Tatiana Caicedo, according to the same source. .
The Galera San Francisco reserve is home to a biological wealth comparable to that of the Ecuadorian archipelago of the Galapagos, located 1,000 km from the coast and classified as a natural heritage of mankind.
In 2015 and 2017, nests were also found on the coastline, but the eggs had not hatched.
The species Dermochelys coriacea lives in the temperate tropical, subtropical and subarctic waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.