Eventually the GPS tags slough off because “the outside of a young turtle’s shell sheds as they grow very quickly,” said Katrina Phillips, a marine ecologist at the University of Central Florida and co-author of the new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

These aquatic reptiles swim thousands of miles across the open ocean to return to the same foraging grounds and nesting sites. They don’t always take the shortest, most direct route, but they do eventually get to where they’re going.

Challenges with tracking and data collection meant little was known previously about the lives of adolescent turtles

Young sea turtles actively swim and choose their paths instead of drifting. New satellite tracking reveals their movements.