Boat and Beach

Hundreds of Turtles Arrive on Mexican Beach (PHOTOS)

1/16
An Olive Ridley sea turtle arrives at Ixtapilla beach, in Aquila municipality on the Pacific coast of Michoacan State, Mexico, on October 13, 2013. More than 1,000 turtles are expected to arrive in the area daily this season. (HECTOR GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images)

1/16
An Olive Ridley sea turtle arrives at Ixtapilla beach, in Aquila municipality on the Pacific coast of Michoacan State, Mexico, on October 13, 2013. More than 1,000 turtles are expected to arrive in the area daily this season. (HECTOR GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images)

Every year, tourists flock to Mexico's Pacific coast for its pristine, jungle-lined beaches and stunning ocean vistas, but another group of visitors arrive annually to become a common sight on the beaches' sandy shores. For a few months each year, peaking in the early fall, Olive Ridley sea turtles come ashore on Mexico's Pacific coast in waves of hundreds to lay their eggs in the sand, according to Oceanwire.

Locals in some of Mexico's beach towns, including Ixtapilla Beach in Aquila, are already seeing Olive Ridleys drag themselves up the beach to nest. This extraordinary -- almost synchronized -- nesting habit is known as an "arribada." During these arribadas, hundreds to thousands of females come ashore to lay their eggs. At many nesting beaches, the nesting density is so high that previously laid egg clutches are dug up by other females excavating the nest to lay their own eggs, according to NOAA's Office of Protected Resources.

Scientists do not know exactly what conditions bring all the sea turtles ashore to nest, but possibilities include moon or tide phases, and climate or weather conditions, explains NOAA.

(MORE: Strangest Things That Have Washed Up on Beaches)

According to MarineBio.org nesting can take between one and three hours. A female turtle hollows out a pit with her back legs and deposits 50-200 eggs the size of golf balls. When the last egg is laid, the turtle covers the eggs with sand, tamps down the sand with her plastron and flings more sand about with her flippers to erase any signs of the nest. After about two months, the hatchling turtles emerge at night. The light reflected off the water from the sky guides them to the sea.

The sea turtles nest in significant numbers on a few select beaches in Mexico, Costa Rica and India, Mexican Turtle Center biologist Marta Harfush told NPR. The Olive Ridley turtles that breed in the Pacific are categorized by the US National Marine Fisheries Service as "endangered."

Ixtapilla Beach is one Mexican beach that records massive arrivals of the sea turtles, and the arribadas attract tourists from everywhere, according to Wildcoast/Costasalvaje, an organization helping locals protect the turtles.

Several preservation organizations in the area have been working on strategies to prevent curious tourists from affecting nesting turtles and new offspring. Some groups have organized local volunteers to patrol the beach and inform and educate tourists about the nesting turtles.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Dolphins Surf the Waves Off South Africa