Homing Behavior and Homeward Orientation Study

Last summer, the Earthwatch volunteers helped me track terrapins to determine whether they display homing behavior, using radio and sonic telemetry. Eight out of the nine terrapins that we tracked all returned home successfully! Sadly, one was recaptured in a crab pot. We also placed terrapins inside a 16-square meter terrestrial arena to determine if they had homeward orientation (placing terrapins inside the arena at night was the most fun). We were able to run 181 terrapins in the arena throughout the summer and have some interesting results... females tend to have a mean homeward direction while males did not. Females may be interested in locating home for nesting locations. This summer, we are going to run more terrapins in the arena and need volunteers to help. If you are interested in seeing some more of my results, a poster I recently made for a symposium is here (click on the link, then go to the file menu of google docs to download the original full version of the poster).

-Nicole