Sexing

Common techniques for sexing sea turtles hatchlings include histological examination of gonads and direct examination of gonadal morphology by glycerine clearing, dissection or laproscopy and by analysing sex steroid concentrations in egg chorioallantoic/amniotic fluid. Turtles with complete Mullerian ducts were classified as females, and those in which ducts were interrupted or missing were judged to be males. Specimens were microscopically sexed as males using the differentiated into distinct presumptive seminiferous tubules with associated germ cells, while the cortex was reduced to an investing squamous epithelium. With females the cortex was well developed containing numerous germ cells and a columnar epithelium, while the medulla showed no development of seminiferous tubules.

Adult sea turtles can be sexed using external secondary characteristics and internally. Male turtles have very elongated tails which extend more than 25 cm beyond the carapace and have a pronounced recurved claw on each flipper. Their paired gonads are abdominal. They attached to the peritoneum either side of the dorsal midline just anterior to the pelvic girdle, and are immediately ventral to the kidneys. A testis is a smooth surfaced elongate organ in which the seminiferous tubules can be seen through the investing tunica albuginea. An ovary has a granular surface and varies from a compact mass of oocytes and previtellogenic follicles up to 3 cm diameter. The oviduct varies from a thin straight white duct on an unexpanded mesovarium lying lateral to the ovary to a broad convoluted pink duct suspended into the body cavity on an expended mesovarium.