Death after pipping


Pipping is a process by which a turtle hatchling breaks free from the egg shell. The process can take almost one day, as subsequent to pipping, hatchlings remain within the egg chamber to retract the remaining external undigested yolk through the umbilicus into the body cavity.

This characteristic of external yolk retention coupled with time
spent in the nest after hatching makes the hatchlings vulnerable to attack from insect larvae that may be nearby, and may cause death to the hatchlings.

Pictured above is an example of such condition in a hawksbill turtle.

[Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 24-105 f/4L IS @88mm, f/5.6, 1/45sec, ISO 800]

Love to hear your thoughts, please share here....

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: