A team of researchers studying twelve leatherback sea turtle nests in Oaxaca, Mexico has discovered that the baby turtles can communicate with each other from inside their eggshells to coordinate when they are ready to hatch. The authors of the study wrote: “Sound communication appears to be a more important facet of freshwater and marine turtle biology than previously imagined, particularly between laying of the eggs and hatching of the young during the reproductive season.”

A team of researchers studying twelve leatherback sea turtle nests in Oaxaca, Mexico has discovered that the baby turtles can communicate with each other from inside their eggshells to coordinate when they are ready to hatch.

The authors of the study wrote: “Sound communication appears to be a more important facet of freshwater and marine turtle biology than previously imagined, particularly between laying of the eggs and hatching of the young during the reproductive season.”

After incubating for 51 days, the baby turtles were observed making over three hundred distinctly different sounds that the researchers believe are a form of communication.

They split the recorded sounds into four categories described as grunts, chirps, complex hybrid tones, and sounds that had more than one characteristic or harmonic frequency.

If the turtles all hatch at the same time, they have a better chance of survival based on the idea that there is safety in numbers.

Similar tactics are reportedly used by other animals like birds and crocodiles, but this is the first time scientists have studied turtle baby noises.

Previous studies theorized that temperature dictated when the turtles would hatch, and the noises that turtles made weren’t identified as forms of communication.